Newly released emails show EPA director’s extensive use of fictional alter ego

Richard Windsor never existed at the EPA, but the agency awarded the fictional staffer’s email account certificates proving he had mastered all of the agency’s technology training — including declaring him a “scholar of ethical behavior,” according to documents disclosed late last week. Windsor.Richard@epa.gov was the controversial email alias used by former Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson, who resigned earlier this year amid questions about whether her agency was complying with open-records laws. The new records — the latest in a series that EPA critics have pried loose under open-records requests — suggests Ms. Jackson used the alias even more widely than known, including taking required agency computer training under the fake identity. “At least her alter ego was up on the law and ethics of federal record-keeping,” said Christopher Horner, the researcher and senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute who made the open-records request that pushed EPA to release the certificates. Mr. Horner first revealed the existence of the alternate addresses last year in his book “The Liberal War on Transparency,” and since then has pushed for more disclosure about the practice. In a set of emails released to Mr. Horner earlier this year Ms. Jackson appeared to using the email to pretend she really was Windsor. Mr. Horner argues that the secondary email matters because it wasn’t clear that EPA was searching those records in response to open-records requests for Ms. Jackson’s emails. Mr. Horner said that EPA didn’t really begin to produce emails from the Richard Windsor account until after he exposed that address...more