The Trump Justice Department has launched a federal grand jury investigation into United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain over serious allegations of abuse of power and self-dealing.
A grand jury has subpoenaed the UAW’s court-appointed monitor as part of the probe into claims that Fain pressured a high-ranking union official to secure benefits for his fiancée and her sister, CNBC reported.
The investigation follows a series of damning reports from the federal monitor documenting retaliation against top UAW leaders who pushed back on questionable spending decisions.
The culture of corruption has long plagued the United Auto Workers. Multiple former UAW presidents and top officials were convicted and sent to prison in one of the largest labor racketeering scandals in modern history, using members’ dues for luxury cars, golf trips, bribes, and personal enrichment.
The UAW was placed under a federal consent decree after the previous wave of corruption convictions. The monitor was supposed to clean house.
Shawn Fain ran for president as a so-called “reformer.” But the more things change at the UAW, the more they appear to stay the same.
The court-appointed monitor, Neil Barofsky, has repeatedly accused Fain of abusing his authority.
Previous monitor reports detailed how Fain retaliated against UAW Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock and Vice President Rich Boyer after they resisted questionable expenditures. One report highlighted Fain’s push for bonuses at a Stellantis training center that would have directly benefited his fiancée.
Fain has angrily denied the findings, calling the monitor’s reports “politically charged and false” and accusing Barofsky of “playing political games and abusing his power.”
Fain said in a statement that Barofsky’s reports were politically motivated, citing what he described as a heated and highly personal disagreement with the monitor in 2024 over the union’s executive board’s call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
“Now, more than two years after becoming aware of Vice President Boyer’s allegations, and on the eve of our election, Mr. Barofsky has chosen to publicly release a politically charged and false report about me. The most reasonable conclusion is that he is playing political games and abusing his power,” Fain wrote in the statement, which was dated on Tuesday and released on Thursday.
A spokesperson for Jenner & Block, the law firm that employs Barofsky, said he has “acted with the highest levels of professionalism, integrity, and respect in his roles in public service, private practice, and as a DOJ-appointed monitor.”
Art Wheaton, a labor studies professor at Cornell University, said that although the federal watchdog can take severe disciplinary action, some of which could affect Fain’s ability to run for office, the potential for drastic or criminal punishment in the case does not appear likely to reach that level.
This is the same Fain who, during his speech on the opening night of the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, blasted President Trump and unfurled a red T-shirt emblazoned with the words, “Trump Is a Scab.”
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