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04 March 21
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Ken Klippenstein | Trump Administration Referred a Record Number of Leaks for Criminal Investigation
Ken Klippenstein, The Intercept
Klippenstein writes:
Efforts to crack down on leakers skyrocketed under Trump, according to a Justice Department document obtained via FOIA.
he Trump administration referred a record number of classified leaks for criminal investigation, totaling at least 334, according to a Justice Department document obtained by The Intercept under the Freedom of Information Act.
While leak investigations had already been on the rise under the Obama administration, which prosecuted more than twice as many leakers under the World War I-era Espionage Act as all previous administrations combined, that number still rose sharply under the Trump administration.
In 2017, there were a staggering 120 referrals for leak investigations from government agencies to the Department of Justice — higher than any year since at least 2005. There were also 88 criminal referrals for leaking classified information in 2018, according to the document, 71 in 2019, and 55 for the first three quarters of 2020, according to the most recent data available. By comparison, during the Obama administration, there were 38 referrals in 2016, 18 in 2015, and 41 in 2014.
Very few referrals typically end up identifying suspects, much less going to trial. Instead, the leak crackdown is meant to instill a climate of fear around talking to the press. In its leak indictments, the Justice Department has stressed how it hopes to “deter” further leaks, as it did in its 2019 indictment of military intelligence analyst Henry Kyle Frese, accused of leaking classified information to two reporters. That deterrence also has a political dimension: As The Intercept has reported, most leaks prosecuted by the Trump administration have pertained to the Russia investigation.
This document, which lists the number of referrals but no other details, like the originating agency or the number of open investigations, was obtained after a FOIA request to the Justice Department’s National Security Division, seeking a yearly breakdown of “crimes reports,” which are formal notifications sent by intelligence agencies to the Justice Department whenever an unauthorized disclosure of classified information is believed to have occurred.
As president, Donald Trump made no secret of his contempt for leakers and whistleblowers, calling them “traitors and cowards” and directing his administration to investigate leakers aggressively — especially leaks to the media, which were rampant in the Trump White House. In 2019, Trump referred to the whistleblower who filed a report with Congress on Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “close to a spy,” adding ominously: “We used to handle them a little differently than we do now.”
In 2017, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions condemned what he called a “staggering number of leaks” from inside the Trump administration and told Congress that leak investigations had increased by 800 percent. The report, obtained under FOIA, reflects a similar uptick: Referrals were up 400 percent in 2017 from the previous year.
The FBI under Trump, in fact, even established a special unit in its Counterintelligence Division for investigating leaks, according to a heavily redacted FBI document obtained by TYT Investigates in 2018. “The complicated nature of — and rapid growth in — unauthorized disclosure and media leak threats and investigations has necessitated the establishment of a new Unit,” the internal memo states. A former senior FBI counterintelligence official with experience in conducting media leak investigations told The Intercept that the unit had been established to crack down on leaks relating to the Russia investigation. (The FBI declined to comment when asked if it had closed down the leaks unit established under Trump.)
Ironically, in another conversation the president had earlier that summer, Trump disclosed classified information about a military operation against the Islamic State to Russia’s foreign minister and the Russian ambassador to the U.S. When this was later reported, after the White House initially denied it, Trump admitted to it, saying that it was “absolute right” to do so, before calling on the FBI director — on the same day — “to find the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.”
In the past, a small number of leaks have resulted in investigations, an even smaller number in suspects identified, and a still smaller number result in actual prosecutions. Though there were far more leak referrals under the Trump administration, the number of people prosecuted for leaking classified information to the press was about the same as the Obama years, totaling eight, according to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. Only around three leakers total were prosecuted prior to the Obama administration.
However, the low rate of prosecutions doesn’t seem to be for lack of trying. As George Tenet bemoaned to Congress during his confirmation hearing to be director of Central Intelligence in 1997, “We file crimes reports with the attorney general every week about leaks, and we’re never successful in litigating one.”
“Leaks are extremely hard to prove,” the former senior FBI official who had worked on media leak cases said. In many cases, too many people have access to a piece of information to be able to narrow it down enough to catch them, and even if you have a good idea, the FBI hates the bad press that media leak cases frequently entail, the former official said. “No prosecutor wants to go to trial unless we have someone dead to rights.”
National Guard troops stand behind security fencing with the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building behind them, on Saturday, Jan. 16, 2021 in Washington, DC. (photo: Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times)
ALSO SEE: Trump Served With Civil Rights Lawsuit
After Capitol Riot
House Cancels Thursday Session After Police Warn of Possible Attack on Congress
Mark Katkov and Scott Neuman, NPR
he House of Representatives has canceled its Thursday session after the U.S. Capitol Police said it is aware of a threat by an identified militia group to breach the Capitol complex that day.
The Senate plans to remain in session on Thursday to debate amendments to the COVID-19 relief bill.
March 4 is a significant date for far-right conspiracy theorists who believe that former President Donald Trump will return to power on that day. Presidents were inaugurated on March 4 until 1933, after which the 20th Amendment to the Constitution moved the date to Jan. 20.
The threat comes nearly two months after extremist Trump supporters broke into the Capitol, forcing lawmakers and the vice president to flee moments ahead of an angry mob. The insurrection resulted in the deaths of several people and the arrest of more than 250.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the Capitol Police, which was heavily criticized for its handling of the Jan. 6 insurrection, said it had "obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group on Thursday, March 4."
The federal force charged with protecting Congress is "aware of and prepared for any potential threats towards members of Congress or towards the Capitol complex," the statement says.
"We have already made significant security upgrades to include establishing a physical structure and increasing manpower to ensure the protection of Congress, the public and our police officers," the statement says, adding that the force is "working with our local, state, and federal partners to stop any threats to the Capitol."
"We are taking the intelligence seriously. Due to the sensitive nature of this information, we cannot provide additional details at this time," the statement says.
Timothy Blodgett, acting House sergeant-at-arms, described the intelligence as "concerning" in a message to lawmakers. He said the militia group had "additional interest in the Capitol for the dates of March 4th-6th."
Meanwhile, ongoing Senate hearings have been trying to determine what led to the security lapses that resulted in the Jan. 6 riot. One focus of questioning has been the slow deployment of security personnel to the Capitol to quell the pro-Trump insurrectionists.
The D.C. National Guard's commanding general, Maj. Gen. William Walker, told Senate lawmakers on Wednesday that senior Defense Department officials took more than three hours to approve the deployment of National Guard members to the Capitol to quell the Jan. 6 insurrection.
He said then-Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, who resigned in January amid fallout from the riot, had made a "frantic request" for National Guard troops at 1:49 p.m. But Walker said he didn't get approval to deploy them until after 5 p.m.
"We already had Guardsmen on buses ready to move to the Capitol," Walker wrote in prepared remarks to the two Senate panels that are holding hearings on the Jan. 6 insurrection.
He said that the day before the riot, unusual restrictions were placed by then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy on the deployment of quick-reaction forces, requiring it be approved up the chain of command. Walker said he'd "never before had that happen" in two decades of service.
Walker also corroborated testimony from Sund last week that Defense Department officials on a conference call expressed concerns about "the optics" of deploying National Guard troops.
Capitol rioters. (photo: Getty)
Trump's Pentagon Blocked Troops From Getting to the Capitol Riots for Hours, DC National Guard Commander Said
Paul McLeod, BuzzFeed News
McLeod writes:
The DC National Guard commander said he was not allowed to send troops to the Capitol, in sharp contrast to the city’s George Floyd protests last year, when troops were given immediate permission to deploy.
he head of the DC National Guard told Congress Wednesday he was “stunned” as senior military leaders refused desperate pleas to send in troops to quell the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol.
Even after the Capitol had been breached, Pentagon officials in the Trump administration held off on sending in reinforcements for three hours and 19 minutes while citing a concern about “optics,” DC National Guard commanding general William Walker told the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
Walker said that former president Donald Trump’s acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller leveled “unusual” restrictions the day before the riots that required Walker to seek Miller’s permission to move troops or to allow members of a rapid response unit to arm themselves or put on helmets or body armor.
The DC National Guard had 340 troops either deployed or ready to deploy to help DC police handle traffic around the city that day. Walker said he could have had 155 National Guard troops at the Capitol within 20 minutes of getting the order.
Instead, those troops would spend hours waiting for permission to help Capitol Police, who had been hopelessly overwhelmed by rioters.
Walker said he received a “frantic” call from then–Capitol Police chief Steven Sund at 1:49 p.m. to request backup. “Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated there was a dire emergency at the Capitol and he requested the immediate assistance of as many available National Guardsmen that I could muster,” said Walker.
Senior military leaders were then looped into the call. But, according to Walker, senior Defense officials Charles Flynn and Walter Piatt said that “it would not be their best military advice to have uniformed guardsmen on the Capitol.” Walker said they cited concerns about the optics of deploying soldiers to the Capitol, as well as the risk of “inflaming” the crowd.
Walker said this was unlike the racial justice protests last year after the death of George Floyd, during which the National Guard was given immediate approval to aid local law enforcement.
For hours, crowds stormed the Capitol on live TV while National Guard troops waited for permission to deploy. At one point, Walker said he loaded troops onto buses without permission in anticipation that they would be given the OK any minute.
That green light wasn’t given until 5:08 p.m., three hours and 19 minutes after the first desperate call for help came in. Miller, in his role as acting defense secretary, actually gave the order at 4:32 p.m., acting Assistant Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said, but for some reason that direction was not relayed to the National Guard for another half hour. No explanation was given for this delay.
“That’s an issue. There were decisions that were being made, there were communications that needed to take place, and there were actions that needed to happen,” said Salesses.
Once the green light was given, National Guard troops arrived at the Capitol in 18 minutes, said Walker.
Salesses was not on the 1:49 p.m. call with Sund, but said he spoke to Defense officials who were, including Flynn and Piatt, both of whom denied using the word “optics.” Walker insisted he heard that word and those arguments.
“There were people in the room with me on that call who heard what they heard,” he said.
This is not the first time security officials have given contradictory statements about the lapses that allowed the riots to happen.
But one thing that Walker and Salesses both testified to is that acting Defense Secretary Miller wanted DC police, rather than federal troops, to be deployed to rein in the Trump supporters besieging the Capitol.
About 40 minutes after the request for aid came in, at 2:30 p.m., senior Defense officials met to discuss the request. Miller’s first move, at 3:04 p.m., was to authorize the National Guard to reinforce DC police in the city to allow them to focus on the Capitol, according to Salesses. Walker also said the initial focus was on backing up DC police rather than getting directly involved.
Salesses testified that “after reviewing the DC National Guard forces’ missions, equipping, and responsibilities to be performed at the Capitol Complex,” Miller gave the order to send troops to the Capitol at 4:32 p.m. to then–Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy. Salesses did not address why that order was not passed on to the National Guard until 5:08 p.m.
Chairman Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty)
Bernie Is Right: We Shouldn't Let the Senate Parliamentarian Block a Minimum Wage
Ben Beckett, Jacobin
Beckett writes:
Bernie Sanders is absolutely right to insist we should ignore the Senate parliamentarian’s ruling against a minimum wage increase. Reducing poverty is far more important than adhering to fusty, old Senate rules.
f you’re a home health aide, you spend your days making sure sick and elderly people are taking their medicines; you help them bathe and get dressed and exercise; you probably change their sheets and help them use the bathroom. In the coronavirus lockdown, there is a good chance you are one of the only human beings they see.
And yet, if you’re earning the average wage in your profession, you make about $12 an hour before taxes. If you live in, say, Ohio and make the average wage, you earn less than $11.
Perhaps on the way to work, you hear on the radio that someone known as the “Senate parliamentarian” decided that the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour could not go into the economic stimulus bill Congress is considering. For reasons even few political junkies actually understand, the parliamentarian has just stopped you from getting a 25 percent raise, a promise Joe Biden and Democrats all over the country campaigned on. In fact, the parliamentarian prevented thirty million workers from getting a raise, roughly 19 percent of US workers who earn under $15 an hour.
Since you are a reasonable person, you might assume the Democrats would simply overrule the parliamentarian and keep their campaign promise. After all, for the first time in a decade, they control both houses of Congress and the White House, in large part based on the idea they would make things better for people like you. Would you be right in your assumption?
The short answer is probably not. While 59 percent of Americans favor raising the minimum wage and 40 percent told pollsters they would personally benefit, senior Democrats like White House chief of staff Ron Klain have said they don’t expect Kamala Harris, who serves as president of the Senate, to overrule the parliamentarian.
Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, is insisting that the Senate should simply ignore the ruling. He has promised to force a vote on the $15 minimum wage this week. “My personal view is that the idea that we have a Senate staffer, a high-ranking staffer, deciding whether 30 million Americans get a pay raise or not is nonsensical. [Elected officials] have got to make that decision, not a staffer who’s unelected,” Sanders said on Monday.
Bernie is right. While $15 an hour still isn’t really enough to live on, it would more than double the current minimum wage. Even so-called deficit hawks, who oppose greater government spending on principle, should be behind a minimum wage hike. Raising the minimum wage gives money to desperately hurting people without costing the government anything.
Beyond cruelly denying relief to some of the most exploited workers in the country, letting a minimum wage increase flounder is a gift to the Right. The last president to sign a minimum wage increase into law was George W. Bush. For the duration of Barack Obama’s presidency, the value of the minimum wage plummeted, when adjusted for inflation. (It spiked briefly during Obama’s first year in office, but this was due to legislation Bush had previously signed.)
The point here is not that Republicans care a great deal about helping minimum wage workers — they don’t. The point is that Democrats have done very little to show that they care, either.
It’s a well-practiced routine for the Dems by now: first, claim popular programs that would help lots of people are too expensive or impractical. Years later, eventually cave in, promising to enact them. Then, rather than following through when elected, find all kinds of excuses to avoid it, demoralizing your strongest supporters and appearing dishonest to average voters. Finally, insult and patronize your base just enough to eke out another election victory, if you’re lucky. It’s a path to ensure that no matter who holds office, “nothing will fundamentally change.”
The Senate parliamentarian’s ruling suits this dynamic perfectly. It allows some of the most powerful people in the world to claim their hands are tied and that there’s nothing they can do to fulfill the promises they made to tens of millions of people. And it lets them present themselves as virtuous in the process, claiming they’re just following the rules. Forget that they made the rules themselves, and they can change them whenever they want, as Bernie has made clear.
But with the minimum wage close to an all-time low in terms of purchasing power and massive health and economic crises rocking the country, the time for Democratic elites’ cynicism is over. It’s time for Senate Democrats to follow Bernie’s lead and overrule the parliamentarian. Too many people have waited for too long for a raise, and now the bill is due.
New temporary restrictions quietly issued by the Biden administration require the military and the CIA. (photo: John Moore/Getty)
Biden Secretly Limits Counterterrorism Drone Strikes Away From War Zones
Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt, The New York Times
Excerpt:
Requiring higher-level approval is a stopgap measure as officials review whether to tighten Trump-era targeting rules and civilian safeguards.
he Biden administration has quietly imposed temporary limits on counterterrorism drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefield zones like Afghanistan and Syria, and it has begun a broad review of whether to tighten Trump-era rules for such operations, according to officials.
The military and the C.I.A. must now obtain White House permission to attack terrorism suspects in poorly governed places where there are scant American ground troops, like Somalia and Yemen. Under the Trump administration, they had been allowed to decide for themselves whether circumstances on the ground met certain conditions and an attack was justified.
Officials characterized the tighter controls as a stopgap while the Biden administration reviewed how targeting worked — both on paper and in practice — under former President Donald J. Trump and developed its own policy and procedures for counterterrorism kill-or-capture operations outside war zones, including how to minimize the risk of civilian casualties.
Police use teargas to try to disperse protesters in Mandalay. (photo: Getty)
ALSO SEE: How Western Technology Is Used to Crack Down
on Dissent in Myanmar
Dozens Killed in Myanmar's Worst Day of Violence Since Coup
Unnamed Reporter in Yangon and Rebecca Ratcliffe, Guardian UK
Security forces open fire on anti-coup protesters in Yangon, Mandalay and elsewhere
t least 38 people have been killed after Myanmar’s security forces opened fire on peaceful anti-coup protesters in multiple towns and cities, in the worst day of violence since the military coup last month.
Police and military have increasingly used lethal violence in an attempt to crush demonstrations, killingmore than 50 people since the coup on 1 February, according to the United Nations.
“Today it was the bloodiest day since the coup happened on the first of February. We had today 38 people died. We have now more than over 50 people died since the coup started, and many are wounded,” UN special envoy on Myanmar, Christine Schraner Burgener, said in New York.
Crowds have continued to take to the streets daily in defiance of the military junta, with just goggles, hard hats and homemade shields for protection. Protesters are demanding that the military restore democracy and for their elected leaders to be released.
Thinzar Shunlei Yi, a human rights activist based in Yangon, described the military’s use of force against protesters as a “daily slaughter”.
Among those who died on Wednesday was a 19-year-old woman shot in Mandalay. Images shared on social media showed her wearing a T-shirt that read “Everything will be OK”. A teenage boy was also killed. Local media reported that he was 14.
Security forces used deadly force in several cities including Monywa, where six people were killed and at least 30 injured, a witness told the Guardian. Hundreds of people had turned out to protest when police opened fire around 11am.
At least eight people were killed in a neighbourhood in Yangon after security forces opened sustained fire with automatic weapons in the early evening, according to Reuters.
A protester who witnessed the crackdown in North Okkalapa township told the Guardian that the firing was continuous. “I’m still going to go to the frontlines. If I get shot and die then so be it. I can’t stand it any more,” he said.
Demonstrators in the area had been blocking off roads so that prison transport vehicles carrying young female detainees could not pass, the protester said. The demonstrators had heard reports of women were being sexually assaulted in prisons and feared for the safety of those onboard.
Police used slingshots and fired teargas to clear the way, he said. At around 5pm, officers fired with rubber bullets on the roughly 100 protesters who remained, and then soldiers fired with live bullets. The protester said a man next to him was shot and survived, but they were only able to take him to hospital after the police had left.
“I have no words to describe what I feel. There were so many people dying on the road. They fired at any person on the road,” another protester, who also asked to remain anonymous, said. “We are not terrorists, we are civilians, we are trying to get our democracy back. We protest peacefully but they terrorise us.”
Whether the coup succeeds, he said, is 50-50. He does not believe south-east Asian countries, or China would help support the people, but added: “I hope for the UN and US to help. I hope a UN peacekeeping force will come to my country, arrest the general and take him to the ICJ and ICC as soon as possible.”
Schraner Burgener said that in conversations with Myanmar’s deputy military chief, Soe Win, she had warned him that the military was likely to face strong measures from some countries and isolation in retaliation for the coup.
“The answer was: ‘We are used to sanctions, and we survived’,” she told reporters in New York. “When I also warned they will go (into) isolation, the answer was: ‘We have to learn to walk with only few friends’.”
The UN security council is expected to hold a closed session on the situation on Friday after the UK requested a meeting. However, it is unlikely that any coordinated measures will be agreed, as China and Russia have previously blocked attempts to pressure Myanmar’s military.
Ko Bo Kyi, a joint secretary of the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners rights group, said at least 18 people were killed by security forces on Wednesday. Fatalities were reported in the northern town of Hpakant and the central town of Myingyan.
Hundreds of people were detained in Yangon alone, Myanmar Now, an independent outlet, reported. Video posted on social media showed lines of young men, hands on heads, filing into army trucks.
Separately, distressing CCTV footage published by Radio Free Asia showed police stopping an ambulance and detaining three medics. The police assaulted them, kicking and beating them with gun butts.
Almost 1,300 people have been detained since the military seized power, including the country’s ousted leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, who faces four charges, and the president, Win Myint. Two new charges were announced against Win Myint on Wednesday, including one for an alleged breach of the constitution, punishable by up to three years in prison.
Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which Myanmar is a member, met on Tuesday, but the group did not come up with any significant action. A statement released on Tuesday called for an end to violence. However, only four members – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore – called for the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and other detainees.
Pope Francis, who visited Myanmar in 2017, called for dialogue, writing on Twitter that he urged “the international community to ensure that the aspirations of the people of Myanmar are not stifled”.
Wendsler Nosie Sr. spends most of his days at Oak Flat, trying to defend the land from mining. (photo: Christine Romo/NBC News)
Sacred Apache Land 'on Death Row' in Standoff With Foreign Mining Titans
Christine Romo, Cynthia McFadden, Kit Ramgopal and Rich Schapiro, NBC News
Tribal members in Arizona are fighting to protect a piece of land they consider their "Mount Sinai."
he rugged patch of land known as Oak Flat sits in the Tonto National Forest. To the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the 740-acre swath of oak groves and sheer cliffs is sacred ground, a place where they have gone for centuries to hold religious ceremonies and communicate with the Creator.
"No different than Mount Sinai," said Wendsler Nosie Sr., former chairman of the San Carlos Apache.
But Oak Flat is on a path to destruction.
The land is scheduled to be transferred to Resolution Copper, a company controlled by two foreign mining giants, and turned into one of the largest copper mines in the country. The transfer was set in motion by an eleventh-hour provision slipped into a 2014 defense bill by Arizona's two Republican senators at the time.
The poverty-stricken San Carlos Apache Tribe is fighting back in court, alleging the land belongs to the tribe and holds special religious significance. But even they worry the path to victory is slim. Resolution Copper has poured $2 billion into the project and has had the U.S. government on its side.
The dispute has turned into a David-vs.-Goliath-style standoff, drawing in environmental groups and reviving centuries-old questions over land rights involving American Indians.
"We're still trying to defend who we are," said Nosie, who has been camped out at Oak Flat for more than a year as part of his mission to stop the mine.
He sees the conflict as the latest skirmish in his tribe's long fight to maintain its ancient way of life.
A holy place
The San Carlos Apache reservation, about 130 miles east of Phoenix, is among the poorest in the country. Four of every 5 families with children live below the federal poverty line, and the unemployment rate is 30 percent, according to a University of Arizona study.
The reservation is on the outskirts of Tonto National Forest, which is named for the Tonto band of Apaches who lived in the area until the U.S. Army cavalry forcibly removed them in the 1870s.
Many Apaches became prisoners of war. An untold number refused to surrender and instead jumped to their deaths at a ridge now known as Apache Leap.
The Oak Flat area has been considered a holy place for thousands of years, the home of spiritual beings known as Ga'an. Apaches go there to pray, to seek personal cleansing and to hold ceremonies that connect them to their ancestors. It is also a popular campground and hiking destination.
But Oak Flat has long been prized by mining companies. Beneath its surface lies a fortune — one of the largest copper deposits in the world.
Oak Flat has been protected under federal law since 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decreed the area off-limits to mining. President Richard Nixon's Interior Department renewed the ban in 1971, but it added a loophole that allowed for the area to be mined if it was traded to private interests.
A bill proposing to trade away the land had repeatedly failed to pass both houses of Congress since it was first introduced in 2005.
But in December 2014, Sens. John McCain and Jeff Flake of Arizona slipped a last-minute rider into a must-pass defense spending bill. The move amounted to a bonanza for Resolution Copper, which is jointly owned by two mining titans — the Rio Tinto Group of the U.K. and BHP Billiton Ltd. of Australia.
The bill transferred 2,400 acres of national forestland, including Oak Flat, to Resolution in exchange for 5,300 acres of private land owned by the mining company.
Flake declined an interview request. McCain, who died in 2018, touted the project in a 2014 op-ed in The Arizona Republic, saying that the mine would generate jobs and boost the local economy and that the land would remain open to tribal members and others until the company breaks ground.
The legislation stunned and saddened Naelyn Pike, a San Carlos Apache tribal member who first testified before Congress in opposition to the arrangement when she was 13.
"Our cultural identity is being stripped away from us," said Pike, 21, who is Nosie's granddaughter.
"No tree can live without its roots," she said. "And we're that tree."
Engineer Vicky Peacey, senior manager of permits and approvals for Resolution Cooper, said that the company is sensitive to the tribal members' concerns and that it has already modified its mining plans to leave Apache Leap and hundreds of other special areas untouched.
Peacey said company officials have set up a tribal monitoring program, with dozens of trained monitors from several tribes working alongside archaeologists to identify features of the landscape that hold special meaning. "Every plant, every animal, water feature, rocks," Peacey said. "It's really helped shape our mining plan."
Peacey emphasized that the project would employ about 1,500 people and pump about a billion dollars into the economy every year. She also said copper is critical to combating climate change.
Copper is in high demand in the U.S. and around the world, as it is an essential component in such green energy technologies as wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars. The mine beneath Oak Flat is projected to satisfy 25 percent of U.S. demand.
"We have to find a way to balance jobs, economic benefits in these rural communities, as well as environmental protection and cultural heritage preservation," Peacey said. "I think we can do it in this project."
The mining company plans to extract the copper using a method known as block caving, which over time will cause the ground to collapse and create a pit that the company acknowledges will be nearly 2 miles long and 1,000 feet deep. Oak Flat, along with its petroglyph-covered walls and Apache burial sites, is set to be swallowed up in a crater deep enough to hold the Eiffel Tower.
The project has the support of many who live in the area, including the mayor of nearby Superior.
"We need for this project to move forward," Mayor Mila Besich said, citing its economic benefits.
Besich said she didn't understand the "end game" of those opposed to the mine.
"That ore body is never going away, so let's figure out a solution," she said. "Let's figure out ways that this becomes a net positive for people, even though we are going to have to sacrifice some special places."
Others see it differently. The Arizona Mining Reform Coalition has opposed the mine in large part because of concerns over its impact on the area's water supply.
"The real Achilles' heel for this whole project is there's not enough water," said Roger Featherstone, the group's director. "That's something that has just been impossible for us to get anybody to focus on."
Legal fight
A group of Apaches and other opponents of the mine took the battle to court in January, suing the federal government to halt the land transfer.
The Apache Stronghold group argued in the suit that the planned destruction of Oak Flat would violate religious freedom protections. It also argued that an 1852 treaty between the Western Apaches and the U.S. gives the tribe rights to the site.
"The Oak Flat Parcel of the proposed Resolution Copper Mine Project is located right smack dab in the middle of the Western Apaches' 1852 Treaty lands," the lawsuit says. The treaty was "never amended, rescinded, nor terminated," it adds.
In court papers filed the day after President Joe Biden's inauguration, government lawyers argued that Apache Stronghold can't assert ownership rights to the land because the group isn't a federally recognized tribe and that even if it were, the land isn't held in trust for any tribe.
The lawyers, representing the U.S. Forest Service, also asserted that the Apaches faced no immediate harm from the land transfer and that they had failed to show a "substantial burden" on their religious exercise.
"In passing the law that created the land exchange, Congress has determined that facilitating copper mining in Arizona and expanding the Tonto National Forest—a forest which services multiple public purposes including providing recreation opportunities and habitat conservation—is in the public interest," the government lawyers wrote.
The Apaches have already suffered one legal defeat. The judge denied their emergency request to block the transfer.
U.S. District Judge Steven Logan acknowledged that the mine would "close off a portal to the Creator forever and will completely devastate the Western Apaches' lifeblood," but he said the loss didn't appear to breach religious freedom laws. He concluded that the Apache Stronghold group lacked legal standing because it represented individuals rather than a tribal government.
Apache Stronghold is appealing the decision, and the broader case continues. Two more lawsuits have been filed to block the project.
The Apaches got a rare piece of good news Monday when the Biden administration retracted an environmental impact review of the project. The review, which the Forest Service had released just five days before Biden took office, set in motion a 60-day countdown to the land transfer. The handling of the review had drawn sharp criticism as an attempt by the Trump administration to hobble future efforts to disrupt the project.
The abrupt retraction means the land transfer will no longer take place March 11. The Agriculture Department, which oversees the Forest Service, said in a statement that it wanted to conduct a thorough review of the project.
Attorneys for Apache Stronghold said the decision only delays the planned destruction. "Oak Flat is still on death row," said one of the attorneys, Michael Nixon. "This is just a postponement of the execution date."
A spokesperson said Resolution Copper is evaluating the Forest Service's decision and is committed to "ongoing consultation with Native American Tribes and local communities."
Deb Haaland, who is the first Native American to be nominated for interior secretary, said at a Senate confirmation hearing last month that the mining project was under the purview of the Forest Service but that she looked forward to being briefed about it and "making sure that the voice of the tribal nation is heard."
Rio Tinto, one of Resolution Copper's parent companies, sparked controversy last year when it destroyed caves in Australia considered sacred by Aboriginal groups. The 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge caves were blown up in May as part of an iron ore exploration project.
The sites' destruction prompted the company to issue a public apology and spurred the resignation of its chief executive. A report prepared by Australia's Parliament concluded that Rio Tinto "knew the value of what they were destroying but blew it up anyway."
Late Tuesday, Rio Tinto announced that its chairman and a board director will step down. "I am ultimately accountable for the failings that led to this tragic event," Chairman Simon Thompson said in a statement.
Not backing down
Oak Flat's importance to the Apaches was on display in mid-February when nearly 100 tribal members gathered there for a ceremony marking the coming of age for Apache girls.
The four-day Sunrise Ceremony is a seminal event celebrating the transition from girl to woman in the Apache faith. It is a feat of endurance with several hours of dancing and praying each day.
The ceremony began in the early morning with a 12-year-old girl, dressed in a buckskin over a green camp dress and white boots, walking out to the campground and leading a procession of family members and other supporters to an open field, where they danced to 32 songs.
At dusk, a large bonfire was built using massive logs arranged in the shape of a teepee. The girl chanted, prayed and once again danced to 32 songs, surrounded by the other tribal members.
On the morning of the fourth day, the girl headed to the spiritual springs, where she washed clay off her body, signifying her rebirth as a woman.
"That ceremony paves out her life for her," said Vanessa Nosie, Wendsler Nosie's daughter. "And if it's destroyed, that main part of her life is going to be destroyed."
Wendsler Nosie, for his part, said he's willing to die to protect the land his people hold sacred.
"I'm not going anywhere," he said.
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