Randi Weingarten lobbied the CDC to keep your grandchildren's schools closed and it worked.
She spent the years after writing a book about it – with 1.8 million teachers unknowingly picking up the tab.
Congress just learned the teachers who paid for every word of it had no idea where their money actually went.
House Republicans Launch Probe Into AFT Union Dues Spending
House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg and Rep. Rick Allen sent Weingarten a letter demanding a full accounting of every dollar the American Federation of Teachers spent connected to her book, Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy.
The committee's letter said union dues funding "a project that generated private financial gain" meant Weingarten may have used her union to line her own pockets.
The investigation follows a Freedom Foundation analysis published in May, based on the AFT's own federal labor disclosures, that found more than $1.4 million in union expenses tied directly to the book.
Weingarten's union paid left-wing TV commentator Sally Kohn more than $400,000 during the window the book was being written – three times more than Kohn had collected from the union across every prior year put together.
Kohn lists ghostwriting among her services.
Weingarten called her an "indispensable" collaborator in the book's acknowledgments.
The law firm is worse.
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP collected $977,275 from the AFT while the book was in production.
The firm's attorney, Charles Moerdler, was thanked by name in the acknowledgments for reviewing the manuscript – work he supposedly performed pro bono.
Somehow a firm billing nearly a million dollars from the union simultaneously found the time to do that for free.
The union also cut checks for fact-checkers, photographers, and a literary agency.
The book's acknowledgments credit nearly 30 AFT staff members – every one of them paid by dues-paying teachers who never agreed to any of it.
Weingarten Routed Royalties Into a Shell Company She Created in Secret
Weingarten publicly stated book proceeds would be split equally among herself, the union, and two affiliated charities – the AFT Disaster Relief Fund and the AFT Educational Foundation.
The two charities received $125,000 combined.
Another $125,000 went to a Delaware corporation Weingarten controls called "Teachers Want What Kids Need, LLC" – registered in June 2024, with no public-facing presence, no website, and no charitable status.
It was created the same month Weingarten began working on the book.
When pressed by the New York Post, the AFT acknowledged the payments went to Weingarten directly.
The advance royalties totaled $375,000. The charities got one-third. Weingarten's shell company got an equal share. The union kept the rest.
Walberg and Allen demanded all documents concerning the "formation, ownership, governance, and purpose" of the LLC, including any ownership interests held by Weingarten or her immediate family members.
Congress set a July 21 deadline for full compliance.
Weingarten's attorney, Michael Bromwich, said the investigation "looks like a fishing expedition" and demanded the committee withdraw the letter.
The committee sent the letter anyway.
She Closed Government Schools for Two Years Then Spent Teachers Union Dues Writing About It
Weingarten pulls down $469,442 a year from the AFT – more than many of the teachers she claims to champion will earn in a decade.
Internal emails confirmed the AFT wrote the CDC's school reopening language, and the agency adopted it nearly verbatim – guidance that kept government schools shuttered long after the data no longer justified it.
America's test scores fell to their lowest point in two decades in the years that followed.
The book that came out of it claims teachers are the last line of defense against fascism. Every word was written by someone else, charged to the dues of the same teachers whose children lost two years of school. Weingarten pocketed a cut through a company she never disclosed.
The UAW lost multiple presidents to federal prison for exactly this. Weingarten dressed the same playbook in a manifesto about democracy and called anyone who noticed a fascist.
The teachers who funded every word of that book deserve a full accounting.
Congress just decided to get one.
Sources:
- Carl Campanile, "House launches probe into AFT boss Randi Weingarten tapping teachers' union spending to write 'manifesto' book," New York Post, July 7, 2026.
- Ben Smith, "Teachers Paid the Dues – Now Congress Wants to Know Who Got Randi Weingarten's Royalties," RedState, July 8, 2026.
- Aaron Withe, "AFT members paid for Weingarten's book. She kept the royalties," Washington Examiner, June 2, 2026.
- Katherine Hamilton, "Report: Randi Weingarten Used at Least $1.4M in Teachers Union Resources to Write 'Manifesto' Book," Breitbart News, May 19, 2026.
- "American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten Testifies to Uncommon Influence Over CDC School Reopening Guidance," House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, October 2, 2023.
- House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Letter to Randi Weingarten, July 7, 2026.