Exclusive | House launches probe into ATF boss Randi Weingarten tapping teachers union spending to write manifesto book

House Republicans have launched a probe into allegations that American Federation of Teachers’ dues were spent to help the union’s president, Randi Weingarten, write and promote a controversial book.The investigation by the GOP-led House Committee on Education and Workforce comes after The Post’s exclusive report in May that Weingarten tapped into hundreds of thousands in union resources to help pen her tome, “Why Fascists Fear Teachers: Public Education and the Future of Democracy.”“The prospect that rank-and-file educators’ dues may have financed a project that generated private financial gain raises serious questions about transparency, accountability, and fiduciary responsibility within one of the nation’s largest labor organizations,” the head of the committee said in a Tuesday letter to Weingarten.The letter, from Chairman Tim Walberg (R-Michigan) and Rep.Rick Allen (R-Georgia), chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, Employment, Labor and Pensions, said The Post’s report — based on a Freedom Foundation analysis of the union’s federal labor disclosures — raised serious questions.They questioned “whether union funds, personnel, contractors, and other resources were utilized to support the development and promotion of your book while you (Weingarten) simultaneously retained a portion of the resulting royalties and proceeds.”“According to these reports, AFT expended substantial funds on consultants, legal services, publication-related expenses, fact-checking services, photography, and other activities connected to the book,” Walberg and Allen said.A team that assisted Weingarten with the book raked in more than $1.4 million from the AFT’s coffers, The Post previously reported based on the Freedom Foundation analysis — including an attorney whose firm earned $977,000 for various work for the union while he supposedly toiled on the book pro bono, as well as a supposed “ghost writer” who earned over $400,000 overall from th...