05 June 22
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The day before a mob of President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff called Mr. Pence’s lead Secret Service agent to his West Wing office. The chief of staff, Marc Short, had a message for the agent, Tim Giebels: The president was going to turn publicly against the vice president, and there could be a security risk to Mr. Pence because of it.
The stark warning — the only time Mr. Short flagged a security concern during his tenure as Mr. Pence’s top aide — was uncovered recently during research by this reporter for an upcoming book, “Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America,” to be published in October.
Mr. Short did not know what form such a security risk might take, according to people familiar with the events. But after days of intensifying pressure from Mr. Trump on Mr. Pence to take the extraordinary step of intervening in the certification of the Electoral College count to forestall Mr. Trump’s defeat, Mr. Short seemed to have good reason for concern.
It is bad to elect authoritarian lunatics to be president. We have proof now.
Mr. Trump tweeted on the morning of Jan. 5 that Mr. Pence could reject electors. He had tried to persuade some of his informal advisers outside the White House to go to the Naval Observatory, the vice president’s official residence, to seek an audience to pressure Mr. Pence. That day, Mr. Trump spoke with Mr. Pence again, pressing him to do what the vice president said he could not.
It was that day that Mr. Short called Mr. Giebels to his office.
Compared to these guys, Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun were two of the Osmonds. And Jackson once said of his vice president, “John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation I will secede your head from the rest of your body.” That also wouldn’t have been a peaceful transfer of power.
Amid the rising tension, Mr. Short reached out between Christmas and New Year’s Day to Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, asking how he could defuse what was becoming an untenable clash between the Pence and Trump camps. Mr. Kushner deflected the outreach, saying he was wrapped up in negotiations in the Middle East.
Then again, Jackson and Calhoun might have been genocidal slave-drivers, but nobody could say they were feckless weasels.
Hey, we got some good news from NASA via the brand-new Webb space telescope. Although we may have to work with NASA to come up with a common vocabulary. From SciTechDaily:
Imagine if Earth were much, much closer to the Sun. So close that an entire year would only last a few hours. So close that gravity has locked one hemisphere in permanent searing daylight and the other in eternal darkness. So close that the oceans boil away, rocks begin to melt, and the clouds rain lava. While nothing like this exists in our own solar system, planets like this—rocky, roughly Earth-sized, extremely hot, and close to their stars—are not uncommon in the Milky Way galaxy…
...Included in the investigations planned for the first year are studies of two hot exoplanets classified as “super-Earths” for their size and rocky composition: the lava-covered 55 Cancri e and the airless LHS 3844 b. Scientists will train Webb’s high-precision spectrographs on these planets with a view to understanding the geologic diversity of planets across the galaxy, as well as the evolution of rocky planets like Earth.
I’m sorry but I don’t think there’s anything “super” about a “Super Earth” on which it rains hot lava and where the rocks melt. Mega Mercury, maybe. Mustafar System, perhaps.
Weekly WWOZ Pick To Click: “Change My Ways” (Honey Island Swamp Band): Yeah, I pretty much still love New Orleans.
Weekly Visit To The Pathe Archives: Here, from 1963, are some stunt drivers at the Florida State Fair. (Florida. Boy, I dunno.) I’d like to point how the clown there really earned his money. History is so cool.
There’s some fine TV out there right now. The Offer, the series about the making of The Godfather, is right in a sweet spot between being a guilty pleasure and being a prestige project. David Simon’s We Own The City, the true story of the baroque corruption of elements of the Baltimore Police Department, a scandal we followed at the shebeen thanks to the terrific reporting in the Baltimore Sun, was another demonstration of the Simon team’s great gift for casting. Every actor was pitch-perfect. The brooding mood of Obi-Wan Kenobi is enormously compelling, and Star Trek: Brave New Worlds may be the best production out of that franchise since Wrath of Khan. And bringing back the lizardy Gorn as a primary villain is an interesting choice.
Is it a good day for dinosaur news, phys.org? It’s always a good day for dinosaur news!
The claws of the new species of therinizosaur, Paralitherizinosaurus japonicus (reaper reptile by the sea from Japan), were compared with claws from many other therizinosaur species. Analysis of the data placed P. japonicus among the derived therizinosaurs based on four shared, derived characters. An analysis of the morphology of the claws, including their length and shape of the base of the claws indicate that the claws of basal therizinosaurs are generalized and not for specific use, while the claws of derived therizinosaurs were specialized to hook and pull vegetation to the mouth for grazing.
How great is this? Even the vegetarian dinos were scary beasts with weed-whacker claws. They grazed with their own personal scythes. That’s the way to live then to make us happy now, and also to clear some brush, too.
I’m off to DC next week to sit in on the January 6 hearings. This should be quite a show. Be well and play nice, ya bastids. Stay above the snake-line, wear the damn masks, get the damn shots, especially the damn boosters, and spare a moment for the people of Ukraine.
French President Emmanuel Macron walks beside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin in May. (photo: Tobias Schwarz/AFP)
Ukraine says President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about not humiliating Russia ‘can only humiliate France’.
Macron’s comments raised the ire of Kyiv, which slammed the French president’s position. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said bluntly the comments “can only humiliate France”.
Since Moscow invaded Ukraine in late February, Macron has sought to keep an open communication channel with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
His stance has been repeatedly criticised by some Eastern and Baltic partners in Europe, as they see it as undermining efforts to push Putin to the negotiating table.
The French president said his Russian counterpart made a “historic and fundamental” error in invading Ukraine, but it was essential “not [to] humiliate Russia so that the day the fighting stops, we can build a way out through diplomatic channels”.
Macron said France’s role had to be that of “a mediating power“, stressing he put “time and energy” into ensuring the conflict did not escalate into a wider war.
“I have lost count of the conversations I have had with Vladimir Putin since December,” Macron said. They amounted to 100 hours’ worth, he added, which were “at the request of” Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Kuleba responded on Twitter: “Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it. Because it is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives.”
Macron has spoken with Putin regularly since the invasion as part of efforts to achieve a ceasefire and begin a credible negotiation between Kyiv and Moscow, although he has had no tangible success to show for it.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine passed the 100-day mark on Friday with little sign of the war ending amid heavy fighting in the eastern city of Severodonetsk.
Asked about the mediation offer, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said there was “no point in holding negotiations” with Russia until Ukraine received new weapons from the West and pushed Russian forces back “as far as possible to the borders of Ukraine”.
Russia now occupies about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory at a time Kyiv is receiving more powerful weapons from the West.
“Our armed forces are ready to use [the new weapons] … and then I think we can initiate a new round of talks from a strengthened position,” David Arakhamia, Ukrainian lawmaker and a member of the negotiation team, said on Friday.
Tears of relief: Woman and child cry after crossing the border into Medyka, Poland. (photo: AP/PTI)
Source: Hennadii Lahuta in an interview with Radio Svoboda project “Novyny Pryazovia” [“Azov News”]
Quote from Lahuta: “When the occupiers did not provide any humanitarian corridor for taking adults out, we worked hard to evacuate the boarding schools. I know for sure and I can state this with responsibility: not a single child was allowed to be taken out of Kherson Oblast. They didn’t even allow a [humanitarian] corridor for a single kid.
Details: According to Lahuta, there is information that the situation at Oleshki boarding school is extremely difficult. Children there need special care because they have disabilities.
“(There is some information – ed.) about Kherson boarding schools – Novokakhovka, Kakhovka boarding schools. But [speaking] about evacuating these children (outside the Kherson region) – maybe I just do not know, maybe it happened at night towards Crimea,” said the Oblast head who is currently outside the Kherson region.
Lahuta added that attempts to negotiate the evacuation of these children have been unsuccessful so far.
The head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration also said that the occupiers are suggesting to Ukrainians that they travel through occupied Crimea to Russia, Georgia, etc. – “this is the only way out of the Kherson region,” but this is illegal.
Previously: On 1 June, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Russia was taking Ukrainians out of the occupied territories so that they would forget about Ukraine and not be able to return: “[Russia] is forcibly taking out both adults and children.”
According to him, more than 200,000 Ukrainian children have already been deported to Russia: orphans from orphanages, children with their parents, and children separated from their families.
On Children’s Day, Daria Herasymchuk, the Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights and Children’s Rehabilitation, said that Russians have forcibly deported more than 234,000 Ukrainian children to Russia, Belarus or the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts since the start of the war.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the start of production at Tesla's "Gigafactory" in Grünheide, southeast of Berlin, Germany, on March 22. The billionaire, who has run afoul of regulators before, is in their sights again as he tries to buy Twitter. It's raising questions about the Securities and Exchange Commission's ability to police the rich and powerful. (photo: Patrick Pleul/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
Musk called the SEC "bastards" at a recent conference. He tweeted a vulgar innuendo in 2020. He said, "I do not respect the SEC," in a 2018 interview. And after he amassed a significant stake in Twitter this year, Musk filed required paperwork 11 days late.
"You know, Elon Musk is basically saying, 'Come at me. I dare you,'" says Christine Chung, a professor at Albany Law School. She used to be a lawyer in the SEC's Division of Enforcement.
Musk continues to goad the SEC even though the agency has taken multiple actions against him, from fining him millions of dollars to accusing him of securities fraud. In a recent letter, the SEC asked Musk to elaborate on public comments he made about Twitter and to also explain why he didn't file a mandatory disclosure on time.
All this is reigniting a debate about whether the SEC has sharp enough teeth to rein in powerful and wealthy executives like Musk.
Late filing is a "slam-dunk case" against Musk
A lot of Musk's recent behavior has raised eyebrows. Former SEC Commissioner Joseph Grundfest says that it seems pretty clear-cut Musk broke the law with that late filing. When someone amasses more than a 5% stake in a public company, the person has 10 days to tell the SEC, but Musk took his time.
"As a practical matter, it seems to me that this is about as close to a slam-dunk case as you're going to find," says Grundfest, who is now a professor at Stanford Law School. "The junior-most lawyer at the SEC should be able to write up a very powerful complaint."
But Grundfest isn't convinced that charging Musk with a disclosure violation would do much. That offense usually carries a fine of about $100,000.
"To a guy like Elon Musk, that's pocket lint," says Grundfest. "That's chump change. It's bupkis. You take it out of petty cash."
Musk, who is the world's wealthiest person, has an estimated net worth of $227 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
"It's really not going to make a difference," Grundfest adds. "It isn't going to change behavior. He'll chuckle."
The 60 Minutes interview with Musk
In 2018, Musk laughed at the SEC in a 60 Minutes interview with correspondent Lesley Stahl, who asked the Tesla CEO about his decision to settle with the agency over a tweet.
"I want to be clear," Musk said in the interview. "I do not respect the SEC. I do not respect them."
The SEC had sued him for sending "misleading tweets" that "led to significant market disruption." Most famously, Musk tweeted that he was "considering taking Tesla private at $420." He claimed he had the "funding secured" to do so. The SEC alleged he didn't.
Musk and Tesla agreed to pay $20 million each, and the electric-carmaker agreed to "put in place additional controls and procedures to oversee Musk's communications," including his tweets, according to an SEC news release.
However, that sort of muzzling has hardly worked. Musk has continued to malign the SEC publicly, and he recently asked a court to throw out his settlement. In April, a federal judge refused.
Millions vs. billions and trillions
Former SEC officials wonder whether the agency is equipped to police a world where corporations are worth trillions of dollars, where the world's richest people are worth hundreds of billions and where tweets drive stock market moves.
Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission almost a century ago after many Americans lost money in the 1929 stock market crash. The SEC's primary mission is "to protect investors," according to its website.
It was supposed to be a powerful organization — both a regulator and a law enforcement agency. But in the face of market manipulation and other malfeasance, its options are limited. For instance, it can't bring criminal charges.
Chung says it's worth asking: Is the SEC "carrying out its mission in a way that is fair and equitable, regardless of how wealthy and powerful you are?"
For instance, in the wake of the 2008-2009 financial crisis, many Americans wondered why no chief executives were prosecuted. And though financial institutions were forced to pay civil penalties, those penalties were pocket change for banks with trillions of dollars in assets.
"If people feel that markets are rigged, or that markets are fundamentally unfair, and that your wealth and power can dictate what happens to you, they may be less likely to trust what the market is telling us about the value of companies like Twitter," Chung argues.
And when it comes to resources, a wide gap exists between the SEC and the executives and organizations it regulates. To put this into perspective, Musk's net worth is more than 100 times the SEC's annual budget.
"The SEC is sort of driving their Model T, when everybody else is out there in their sports cars," Chung says.
The poop emoji
Even if the SEC doesn't bring charges against Musk, the Tesla CEO is pushing boundaries and testing norms in a way that we haven't seen before, according to lawyer Marc Fagel, who used to run the SEC's San Francisco Regional Office.
He highlights a recent back-and-forth on Twitter between Musk and Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal.
What started out as a substantive exchange about how the social media company counts its users ended with Musk posting a poop emoji.
"We have blunt tools in the securities laws that are designed to penalize fraud," Fagel says. "But if somebody sends a poop emoji and investors decide that they are going to buy or sell stock on that, the securities laws aren't really designed to protect them at that point."
That particular tweet didn't lead to a dramatic move in Twitter's stock price, but several of Musk's other tweets have, including one in which he declared his deal for the company was "temporarily on hold."
Musk seems to have figured out something, Fagel says. In this new world, using the social media platform that Musk is trying to buy, you can mess with markets and it "doesn't really rise to the level of fraud."
Sure, that can hurt investors, but under current law, the SEC can't do much.
January 6, 2021. (photo: John Minchillo/AP)
It's the bipartisan committee’s big chance to take all the testimony and evidence, and present the general public with what the obsessives already know about the attempted coup.
“It has to grab the audience, grab people’s interest and make it as compelling as possible,” Nick Akerman, a former federal prosecutor who helped try Watergate defendants, said. “You want the public on the edge of their seats with the testimony.”
The committee’s one overarching goal here is to make a clear and compelling case that Trump and his lieutenants committed crimes while trying to overturn the election. If accountability is to follow, that case would have to damage Trump in the eyes of the public, while also making a legal case that prosecutors can’t ignore.
The committee has already told a federal judge that it believes Trump and aides committed crimes when they conspired to convince Vice President Mike Pence to delay the electoral vote count and overturn the election. Convincing federal prosecutors of that is another matter.
Former U.S. Attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg told me he expects little from the hearings. “Sadly, we lack a common narrative, and basic facts are disputed–in bad faith–by folks on one side of the political divide,” he said. “The hearings might be interesting, but I do not see it moving the needle. I hope I am wrong.”
Rosenberg said it would be a mistake for lawmakers and the committee’s investigative counsel to try to convince Attorney General Merrick Garland to prosecute Trump or his allies.
“If members try to convince the Attorney General to charge someone with a crime, it could have the precise opposite effect. Let the Justice Department gather and follow the facts and keep politics and politicians as far away from that institution as possible,” he said.
But if Trump is ever to face criminal charges, the most important audience might not be down the street at DOJ. Trump is also under coup-related investigation in Fulton County, Georgia. A special grand jury convened by District Attorney Fani Willis is underway and has already sent out as many as 50 subpoenas.
Willis is widely thought to be pursuing Trump under Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute. We know that Trump is on tape in two separate phone calls urging Georgia officials to either “find” enough votes to flip Joe Biden’s win or trying to convince them they’d be praised for overturning the results.
Akerman said January 6 testimony could provide the evidence that would fit Trump’s on-tape acts into the kind of broader criminal enterprise that RICO cases are all about—in this case, trying to corruptly overturn the election.
“It’s no coincidence that Willis has been talking to the committee,” he said. “This is the evidence that explains those two tapes. The committee can present the evidence that shows the intent on those tapes was not innocent, but was criminal.”
But while it’s tempting (oh, so tempting) to view upcoming televised hearings through the lens of an eventual criminal trial, some prosecutors advise: Don’t do that.
Former Trump aide Peter Navarro’s lawsuit this week (see below) claims that his recent grand jury subpoena is seeking his communications with Trump. If that’s true, Garland’s DOJ may already be looking into Trump’s inner circle in relation to the insurrection and coup attempt. Also, parallel investigations like one in Congress and one in Georgia can interact in ways that aren’t always an advantage for investigators.
The biggest mistake the committee can make, former U.S. Attorney Renato Mariotti said, is to oversell the public on how far the criminal justice system will go to rectify an attack on Constitutional democracy and hold America’s contemporary coup-plotters accountable.
“This is a problem the American people and their elected representatives need to solve, instead of sitting back and waiting for the criminal justice system to do it for them,” he said.
Just as public hearings are about to get underway, the House Republicans sporting subpoenas from the January 6 committee are doing all they can to prevent another attempted coup still avoiding telling the truth. GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and other lawmakers made a show of attacking the committee this week, while also appearing to leave the door open to cooperation if their various demands are met. This is about delay: There’s a run-out-the-clock vibe to all this, since Republicans will immediately abandon the investigation if they take power next January. But why not just refuse to appear outright? Probably because nascent plans for revenge-worthy investigations in a GOP majority include subpoenaing Democrats right back.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan is on notice that he’s expected to appear for his deposition, though this week the committee gave him an extension.
It’s easy for all this to slip into a fog of partisan bickering, which is also part of the point. For the public, it obscures that these GOP lawmakers have actual, material information critical to understanding the plot and could cooperate if they cared to. (Reporters have no excuse in falling for it, and they should be making it clear to readers and viewers.) McCarthy spoke to Trump during the riot and was so mortified by Trump's actions that he wanted to tell him to resign the presidency. Rep. Scott Perry was instrumental in trying to turn the DOJ into Trump’s personal strong-arm operation, and he was only thwarted when top officials threatened to resign en masse. And Jordan? Nothing to see here!
Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro, who goes toe-to-toe with Jordan for the title of MAGAworld’s Yelliest White Guy, went into legally incomprehensible territory this week after saying he got a subpoena to appear in front of a grand jury. That’s a lot different than a January 6 subpoena: Grand juries charge people with crimes. What’s unclear is whether the subpoena stems from Navarro’s criminal-contempt referral for dissing the committee, or whether DOJ has reached further into Trump’s inner circle with a criminal investigation of the coup plot.
It was revealed this week that while Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has been busy promising to resurrect racist voter suppression tactics if he’s elected, he’s also been cooperating with the January 6 committee… sort of. Mastriano furnished documents about organizing buses to travel to the Jan. 6 rally. Trouble is, none of that comes close to what he has already acknowledged doing to aid the coup attempt. The committee exempted Mastriano from disclosing his state senator–related activities, like urging DOJ officials to overturn the election, scheming to recruit fake electors, and more. Seems like the committee is missing a few things here.
Plan of steal
A couple weeks ago, former Arizona election security chief Ken Matta sounded the alarm to this newsletter as he despaired over the attacks on election workers designed to scare them off: “In the elections community, I can still say everybody is on board with the rules-based integrity of their jobs… I’d still trust my vote to any of these people. That will not continue to be true starting in 2022 and definitely in 2024.”
This week, two major reports revealed how right Matta was about the depths of Trumpist Republicans’ plans to undermine fair voting and the election workers who ensure it. The first is about attorney Cleta Mitchell, who transitioned from helping Trump’s (on tape) effort to steal Georgia, to a national campaign that trains activists nationwide on how to inject suspicion, doubt, and conspiracy into vote counts. As we’ve detailed before, Mitchell, in partnership with the Republican National Committee, has been training right-wing conspiracists to recruit poll watchers, use surveillance to intimidate election workers, and cloud tabulation practices with doubt.
Right alongside Mitchell’s tour is the RNC’s own effort to recruit an “army” of partisan poll workers, lawyers, and prosecutors ready to sow legal chaos in swing states in 2024. It’s the “precinct strategy” advocated by Steve Bannon ever since 2020, which election experts warn could foment enough doubt in election results that GOP-controlled state legislatures could appoint their own electors should they lose. Ken Matta saw it coming. Bad stuff!
In a win for white supremacists…
Ever since a gunman killed 10 Black people in Buffalo, there’s been a lot of reporting on how the racist and antisemitic “great replacement theory” has migrated from the message boards and screeds of mass killers to the GOP mainstream. Popular right-wing commentators like Tucker Carlson regularly traffic in partially sanitized versions, and so do members of the elected Republican leadership.
VICE News’ Cameron Joseph has the results of a disturbing new survey showing that, at least among self-described Republicans, the smuggling of a racist conspiracy into the mainstream is complete. Close to 70 percent of GOP adults said they strongly or somewhat agreed with the idea that “the recent shift in U.S. demographics is not a natural change but has been motivated by progressive and liberal leaders actively trying to leverage political power by replacing more conservative white voters.”
In yet another win for white supremacists…
A half-dozen Proud Boys have gained seats on the executive committee of the Republican Party in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
The big Chese
Remember how a judge in California ordered coup-engineer John Eastman to release his emails to the January 6 committee, all because there was reason to believe he and Donald Trump committed crimes? Now you can check out the plan that caused Judge David Carter to conclude likely felonies were afoot. The plan, laid out in a memo from attorney Kenneth Chesebro to Rudy Giuliani, called for Veep Mike Pence to (illegally) claim the authority to reject slates of electors. That little gambit gave rise to the fake-electors scheme that Rudy tried to implement in seven states.
The company you Kemp
Last week we wrote about why Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s 50-point trouncing of Donald Trump’s revenge primary candidate doesn’t mean Trump’s election-stealing plans aren’t still strong in the GOP. Kemp won in part not by denying conservative voters’ stolen-election fears but by servicing them. And now he’s trying to patch things up with his No, 1 hater.
UPDATE: It’s not going well.
DonkeyCon II
Right-wing election conspiracy group True the Vote bankrolled propagandist Dinesh D’Souza’s film “2000 Mules,” and now they’re taking his show on the road. The group staged a screening and briefing for GOP legislators in Arizona, where they misled everyone, and responded to scrutiny by threatening reporters. Also: What drought in Arizona?
“I’ll say it again. The mainstream media is domestic terrorists.” — The Republican Party of Arizona, @AZGOP, in a now-deleted tweet, putting journalists reporting on the conspiracy theory film “2000 Mules” at risk of getting hurt or killed.
Chisler of Oz — Pennsylvania Republicans sure seem to be relying on safe and reproducible results from the state’s election system. Former hedge fund CEO David McCormick and TV huckster Dr. Mehmet Oz are still locked in a recount after their Senate primary race, where Oz came out on top by fewer than 1,000 votes. This week Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito put a temporary stop to the counting of disputed ballots that arrived on time but weren’t properly dated. McCormick desperately wants the ballots counted, while Oz declared himself the winner. Both men have tacitly supported Trump’s lies about 2020.
Doom-scrollers wanted — VICE’s David Gilbert has the story on the Connecticut secretary of state’s search for an online “misinformation sheriff” to help stamp out bullshit before it takes root. It’s a laudable goal that raises some complex policy questions. By the way, deputies, the gig pays $150,000 a year.
The neuralyzer — When she isn’t busy poisoning the GOP base with low-cal “great replacement” racism, House GOP No. 3 Elise Stefanik is hatching plans to erase Trump’s second impeachment from America’s memory.
Fever stream — Why should donkeys have all the fun? Pillow tycoon Mike Lindell is getting ready to release his own election conspiracy film. It centers on BtV favorite and six-felony indictee Tina Peters with egging on from (what the hell happened to) Lara Logan. Enjoy the trailer, and watch out for Peters and Lindell in an upcoming VICE News Tonight report from Colorado’s GOP primary.
Phyo Zeya Thaw is a former lawmaker from Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy. (photo: Lynn Bo Bo/EPA)
Gray Wolf. (photo: Oregon Wild)
Today’s ruling throws out the Trump administration delisting rule and reinstates federal protections for wolves in 44 states. In Oregon, this covers wolves west of Highway 395.
“Wolves need federal protection, period,” said Kristen Boyles, attorney at Earthjustice. “The Fish and Wildlife Service should be ashamed of defending the gray wolf delisting, and it should take immediate action to restore Endangered Species Act protections to all gray wolves, including those in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.”
“Today’s ruling is a significant victory for gray wolves and for all those who value nature and the public’s role in protecting these amazing creatures,” said Jamie Rappaport Clark, CEO and president at Defenders of Wildlife. “Restoring federal protections means that these vitally important animals will receive the necessary support to recover and thrive in the years ahead.”
“Although we celebrate this win, my thoughts keep returning to the hundreds of wolves who suffered and died under state management,” said Collette Adkins, carnivore conservation director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “I hope this ruling finally convinces the Fish and Wildlife Service to focus on recovering wolves, not prematurely removing their life-saving protections.”
“Last year we saw 8 wolves illegally poisoned in Oregon with the perpetrator still at large,” said Danielle Moser, Wildlife Program Coordinator at Oregon Wild. “Restored protections are integral to making up for this devastating loss not only in our state but across the West.”
“Today is a monumental victory for wolves who will now be protected from state-sponsored bloodbaths,” said Kitty Block, President and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States. “After having yet another wolf delisting overturned in federal court, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should finally learn its lesson. Instead of continuing to devise convoluted excuses to strip these beloved animals of legal protections, the agency must develop a plan for meaningful recovery across the species’ range and ensure that states will not decimate their wolf populations.”
“In a year where many wolves have been killed near national parks, today’s decision provides tremendous hope for the future of these animals. Wolves are an iconic species and a key part of many national park ecosystems,” said Bart Melton, Wildlife Program Director with National Parks Conservation Association. “As wolves continue to return to national park landscapes, this decision will provide protections for them for generations to come.”
"Today's ruling restoring much-needed federal protections means that wolves will have a chance to fully recover and carry out their important ecological and cultural roles across the country," said Bonnie Rice, Senior Representative for the Sierra Club. "Instead of prematurely removing protections for wolves, the Fish and Wildlife Service should once and for all commit to their full recovery, including immediately reinstating protections for wolves in the Northern Rockies."
Earthjustice challenged the wolf delisting in a lawsuit on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club, National Parks Conservation Association, Oregon Wild, and the Humane Society of the United States in January of 2021; that lawsuit was joined by another coalition of conservation groups and NRDC.
BACKGROUND
Gray wolf recovery in the United States should be an American conservation success story. Once found nationwide, gray wolves were hunted, trapped, and poisoned for decades; by 1967 there were fewer than 1,000 wolves in one isolated part of the upper Midwest. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service protected gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act in 1978. Today there are recovering wolf populations in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho; wolves have begun to inhabit Washington, Oregon, and California; and unclaimed wolf habitat remains in states like Maine, Colorado, and Utah.
In 2020, 1.8 million Americans submitted comments opposing delisting. Additionally, 86 members of Congress (in both the House and Senate), 100 scientists, 230 businesses, Dr. Jane Goodall from the Jane Goodall Institute, and 367 veterinary professionals all submitted letters opposing the wolf delisting plan. Even the scientific peer reviews commissioned by the Fish and Wildlife Service itself found that the agency’s proposal ignored science and appeared to come to a predetermined conclusion, with inadequate scientific support.
After the gray wolf was removed from the protections of the Endangered Species Act, Wisconsin held a tragic wolf hunt, where hunters with dogs slaughtered 218 wolves in three days–exceeding the harvest quota by nearly 100 animals. In Idaho and Montana, where wolves were stripped of federal protections a decade ago, the states have allowed increased wolf slaughter.
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