The U. S.
Department of Justice is investigating allegations that United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain misused his official authority to improperly benefit his fiancée and retaliated against a senior union official who opposed his actions, according to internal union documents reviewed by Reuters.
The lead counsel for the court-appointed federal monitor overseeing the union notified Fain and UAW Vice President Rich Boyer last month that a grand jury probe had been opened by the federal government.
The investigation focuses on matters outlined in recent reports from Neil Barofsky, the independent monitor managing the union's internal oversight.
The federal monitor released a report last month concluding that Fain had engaged in retaliatory actions against Boyer and abused his leadership authority to benefit his fiancée, though any final disciplinary decisions were deferred for further review without explicitly mentioning the federal investigation at that time.
"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 email reviewed by Reuters.
The independent investigator indicated that the ongoing criminal probe would remain confidential for the time being.
"We do not intend to publicly disclose the existence of that investigation at this time," he continued.
Fain, who is currently seeking a second four-year term in an upcoming union election later this year against a field of candidates that includes Boyer, has strongly rejected the findings of the oversight office.
"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 said in an official statement, noting that he has retained a private law firm to contest the accusations.
The labor leader countered that Boyer had provided false claims to investigators and asserted that the monitor held a political bias against him stemming from a contentious 2024 dispute regarding the UAW executive board's public call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The UAW declined to comment on the matter, though a legal representative for the organization stated that the union itself is not the target of the grand jury investigation, while Boyer and his attorney did not immediately respond to inquiries.
The Department of Justice did not immediately return requests for comment regarding the status of the investigation, which follows a 2020 federal corruption settlement that placed the UAW under independent oversight after more than a dozen union officials were convicted of embezzling millions of dollars in member funds.
