When an Apology Doubles Down on a Lie: Christie Whitman and 9/11

Christie Whitman testifies before the House Judiciary Committee – June 25, 2007. Photo by Bill Wolfe.

Lying under the guise of issuing a non-apology apology after thousands of people died because of your lies is just about as low as you can go.

I have been writing for 25 years about how then US EPA Administrator Christie Whitman lied about the air in southern Manhattan after the 9/11 attack. I’ve followed the story closely and have been consistently disgusted by the media’s inability or unwillingness to hold Whitman accountable.

And – as expected – it happened again today.

The NY Times story today on NY City Mayor Mamdani’s release of city records of the 9/11 disaster lets former NJ Gov. and Bush EPA Administrator Christie Whitman off the hook, based upon a so called “apology”: After 9/11, Documents Suggest, New Yorkers Were Misled About Air Quality

In a story whose headline and entire focus is on how New Yorkers were misled, you have to read through 36 paragraphs and several dramatic photos into the story before the prime suspect is even mentioned.

This individual was the lead federal entity (EPA) for the science and emergency response jurisdiction in terms of air quality and health risks and her statements are the source of all the other misleading statements by other public officials mentioned in the NY Times story on Tuesday:

Indeed, city and federal officials, most memorably Christine Todd Whitman, the administrator of the E.P.A. at the time, reassured Americans that the air around ground zero was safe to breathe. Ms. Whitman has since apologized.

The NY Times not only buried Whitman’s role (again!).

If you actually read the so called Whitman “apology” it is immediately obvious that it was not in fact an apology at all.

And in the course of a conditional non-apology apology, Whitman doubled down on the lies about what she knew and when she knew it and what the scientists at EPA were advising her.

Read the EPA Inspector General’s Report about that:

+ EPA’s Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes, and Areas for Improvement

+ Lack of Data: The EPA made premature blanket statements assuring the public the air was safe on September 18, 2001, without adequate supporting data or analysis.

+ White House Interference: The White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) pressured the EPA to alter press releases. They added reassuring language and removed cautionary warnings about hazards like asbestos and fine particulate matter.

+ Revising Titles and Text: Draft titles like “Testing Terrorized Sites For Environmental Hazards” were changed to “Reassures Public About Environmental Hazards,” and warnings that low levels of asbestos are hazardous were deleted

Far worse, read the work of my prior employer PEER. Dr. Cate Jenkins, was a senior chemist at the EPA who blew the whistle on the agency’s handling of the 9/11 World Trade Center dust. She alleged that the EPA knowingly used falsified standards and downplayed the extreme corrosivity of the dust. This caused first responders to face severe respiratory risks.

Here is the Whitman “apology” reported by The Guardian:

“I’m very sorry that people are sick,” she said. “I’m very sorry that people are dying and if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry. We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.”

She added: “Every time it comes around to the anniversary I cringe, because I know people will bring up my name, they blame me, they say that I lied and that people died because I lied, [they say] people have died because I made a mistake.”

Note the “if” – “if the EPA and I in any way contributed to that, I’m sorry”.

And this is another lie – “We did the very best we could at the time with the knowledge we had.”

Whitman was ordered by the Bush White House to do everything possible at EPA to assure that Wall Street remained open.

Lying under the guise of issuing a non-apology apology after thousands of people died because of your lies is just about as low as you can go.

Since I am not a psychologist or expert in rhetoric, I asked Google AI to assess Whitman’s rhetorical techniques:

Q: What is the rhetorical and psychological tactic where I person issues an “apology” that says “If anyone was hurt, I’m sorry” when there is clear evidence that many people were hurt by the person’s act?

A: The tactical use of the phrase “If anyone was hurt, I’m sorry” in the face of clear evidence of harm is known rhetorically as a conditional apology (or colloquially, a “non-apology apology”), and psychologically as a form of gaslighting or minimization.

Instead of taking accountability, the speaker shifts the burden of the offense onto the feelings of the victims.

The Conditional Apology: By using the word “if,” the speaker frames the harm as a hypothetical possibility rather than an established fact. This actively casts doubt on the validity and extent of the damage.

Deflection & Shifting Blame: This phrasing subtly alters the focus from the action (what the person did) to the reaction (how people felt). It implies that the action itself wasn’t inherently wrong, but rather that some people may have been “too sensitive” or “misunderstood” it.

The “Mistakes Were Made” Defense (Passive Voice Framing): While not strictly passive voice, it serves the same linguistic purpose as saying “errors occurred.” It removes the speaker’s direct agency and responsibility for causing the outcome.

Minimization: This is a defense mechanism where an individual acknowledges an event occurred but downplays its severity or impact. By questioning if anyone was hurt, they protect their own self-image and ego from the discomfort of guilt.

Gaslighting: When clear, overwhelming evidence of harm exists, issuing a conditional apology forces the victims to question their own reality. It makes the affected group feel as though their collective, visible pain is invisible or up for debate.

Impression Management: The speaker is prioritizing public relations or social survival over genuine remorse. The goal is to check the box of having uttered the words “I’m sorry” so they can claim they apologized, allowing them to socially move on without doing the internal work of repentance.

Q: What tactics are being used when this “apology” is further conditioned by saying “we did the best we could with the information we had at the time”?

A: When a speaker adds the defense, “we did the best we could with the information we had at the time,” they are layering on a rhetorical strategy known as the revisionist history defense and a psychological tactic called external attribution (or situational framing).

This second layer shifts the blame entirely away from the person’s judgment and onto the circumstances, painting the offender as a well-intentioned victim of a bad situation.

The “Good Faith” Fallacy: This frames the action as entirely well-intentioned, regardless of how reckless, negligent, or poorly planned it actually was. It attempts to rewrite history so that the speaker appears competent and moral, even if the outcome was disastrous.

Scapegoating the “Information Gap”: By blaming a lack of information, the speaker creates an abstract villain—the “circumstances.” This distracts from the fact that they may have ignored warning signs, failed to do due diligence, or rushed into a decision.

Moving the Goalposts: This changes the standard of accountability. The conversation shifts from “Did your actions cause harm?” to “Were your intentions pure based on what you knew?”

External Attribution Bias: This is a cognitive bias where an individual attributes their own failures to external, uncontrollable situational factors (e.g., “the data was bad”), while attributing their successes to internal traits (e.g., “I am a great leader”).

Cognitive Dissonance Reduction: The speaker cannot reconcile their self-image as a “good, competent person” with the reality that they caused widespread harm. To protect their ego, they invent a narrative where any reasonable person would have made the same mistake.

Plausible Deniability & Feigned Ignorance: This tactic is used to claim that the harm was completely unpredictable. It blocks any further investigation or criticism by signaling: “We couldn’t possibly have known better, so it is unfair for you to judge us in hindsight.”

In our next post, we will show how Gov. Whitman’s coverup of toxic mercury in 1994 presaged her EPA 9/11 lies.

The photo above is of Whitman when she was called before Jerry Nadler’s House Judiciary Committee in 2007, where she was excoriated. I made damn sure she knew I was there.

During this testimony, Whitman explicitly argued that she based her public declarations on the data and assurances given to her by agency scientists at the time, deflecting accountability by framing it as an issue of the available information rather than a failure of leadership.

She fiercely dismissed accusations that she had intentionally misled the public or acted on political motivations, calling those claims “outright falsehoods” and attempting to pivot the conversation to her good faith intentions.

No fake apology can walk any of that back.