DOJ opens probe into allegations against United – Business News
DETROIT — The Department of Justice is probing allegations that United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain took actions to improperly benefit his fiancée and retaliated against one other senior union member who objected to the actions, in response to inner union paperwork reviewed by Reuters.
The lead counsel for the federal watchdog appointed to supervise union actions knowledgeable Fain and the senior union member, Rich Boyer, final month that the DOJ had initiated a grand jury investigation into issues detailed within the monitor’s studies, together with these involving Fain and his fiancée. The monitor’s workplace, led by New York lawyer Neil Barofsky, points periodic studies in regards to the union’s inside workings.
Fain, who has denied the monitor’s findings and known as the allegations outlined by the monitor “bogus,” is campaigning for a second four-year time period because the chief of the union, and an election is scheduled for later this yr. Boyer is one of a handful of candidates opposing Fain.
UAW President Shawn Fain talking on the UAW thirty ninth Constitutional Convention in Detroit on June 15, 2026. USA TODAY Network through Reuters Connect
The monitor issued a report final month discovering that Fain had retaliated against Boyer and improperly used his authority, together with in ways in which would benefit his fiancée, however deferred a determination on disciplinary motion pending additional review with out citing the federal probe.
“We are not publishing the details of our factual findings on this issue at this time out of deference to a Grand Jury investigation DOJ has initiated into that issue,” the monitor’s lead counsel wrote in a June 18 electronic mail reviewed by Reuters. “We do not intend to publicly disclose the existence of that investigation at this time,” he continued.
Bloomberg earlier reported that the DOJ was probing allegations round Fain. It is unclear how the investigation impacts Fain’s candidacy.
The UAW declined to remark. A lawyer representing the union stated it’s not the subject of a grand jury investigation. Boyer and his lawyer didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
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In a assertion responding to the DOJ investigation, Fain stated that Boyer had “fed the monitor false allegations,” and that the monitor himself had a “political grudge against me because the UAW took an anti-war stance about what was happening in Gaza.” The union president final month stated that Barofsky’s studies had been politically motivated, citing what he stated was a heated and extremely personal disagreement with the monitor in 2024 concerning a call by the union’s govt board for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“What the Monitor is doing is wrong, it’s unfair to the UAW and to you as members, and my lawyers are looking at any and all legal options I can pursue to make it stop,” Fain stated in a assertion, including that he retained a law firm to battle the allegations.
The Department of Justice didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The UAW has been beneath federal oversight since a 2020 settlement to resolve a corruption scandal. The offense concerned more than a dozen union officers, some of whom pleaded guilty to embezzling thousands and thousands of {dollars} for his or her personal benefit, utilizing the funds to buy costly liquor and cigars and to pay {for golfing} outings and associated tools, and costly lodge stays. Two former union presidents had been sentenced to jail time.
