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A letter given to the January 6 committee says the erasure took place shortly after oversight officials requested the agency’s electronic communications.
The Secret Service did not respond to a request for comment from The Intercept. In a statement to the Washington Post, Secret Service spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi disputed the timeline, saying that some electronic communications had been deleted in January, while the Inspector General made its request in February.
The Secret Service has emerged as a key player in the explosive congressional hearings on former President Donald Trump’s role in the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to prevent the 2020 election results from being certified. That day, then-Vice President Mike Pence was at the Capitol to certify the results. When rioters entered the building, the Secret Service tried to whisk Pence away from the scene.
“I’m not getting in the car,” Pence reportedly told the Secret Service detail on January 6. “If I get in that vehicle, you guys are taking off.” Had Pence entered the vice presidential limo, he would have been taken to a secure location where he would have been unable to certify the presidential election results, plunging the U.S. into uncharted waters.
“People need to understand that if Pence had listened to the Secret Service and fled the Capitol, this could have turned out a whole lot worse,” a congressional official not authorized to speak publicly told The Intercept. “It could’ve been a successful coup, not just an attempted one.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., a member of the January 6 committee, called Pence’s terse refusal — “I’m not getting in the car” — the “six most chilling words of this entire thing I’ve seen so far.”
But, the Office of Inspector General letter suggests, key evidence in the form of the Secret Service’s electronic communications may never see the light of day. The Department of Homeland Security — the Secret Service’s parent agency — is subject to oversight from the DHS Office of Inspector General, which had requested records of electronic communications from the Secret Service between January 5 and January 6, 2021, before being informed that they had been erased. It is unclear from the letter whether all of the messages were deleted or just some. Department officials have also pushed back on the oversight office’s records request by arguing that the records must first undergo review by DHS attorneys, which has delayed the process and left unclear if the Secret Service records would ever be produced, according to the letter.
Asked about the matter, a DHS Office of Inspector General spokesperson told The Intercept, “To preserve the integrity of our work and protect our independence, we do not discuss our ongoing reviews or our communications with Congress.”
On June 28, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the January 6 committee, disclosing that Trump had ordered Secret Service to take him to the Capitol so he could address his supporters. Later that day, Secret Service officials disputed aspects of her account, including her allegation that Trump had reached for the wheel of the presidential limousine and lunged at Secret Service.
A top Secret Service official allegedly involved in the attempt to spirit away Pence on January 6 remains in a leadership position at the agency. Tony Ornato, a Secret Service agent whom Trump made the unprecedented decision to appoint as his deputy White House chief of staff, reportedly informed Pence’s national security adviser, Keith Kellogg, on January 6 that agents would relocate the vice president to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “You can’t do that, Tony,” Kellogg reportedly told Ornato. “Leave him where he’s at. He’s got a job to do. I know you guys too well. You’ll fly him to Alaska if you have a chance. Don’t do it.” (Ornato has denied the account.)
Today Ornato serves as the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Training.
Agencies, especially those involved in national security, often use the sensitivity of their work to sidestep oversight, stymying the work of offices of inspectors general. It is not uncommon for inspectors general, particularly effective ones, to face institutional resistance during the course of investigations. Tasked with rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, inspectors general are not always welcomed.
A Customs and Border Protection official provided The Intercept with a document illustrating the challenges. A briefing memo produced by the agency for a leadership meeting with the DHS Office of Inspector General on July 7 instructs participants on how to push back against what it calls the inspector general’s “persistent” request for “direct, unfettered access to CBP systems,” as part of its “high number of OIG audits covering a variety of CBP program areas.” In a section titled “Watch Out For/ If Asked,” the memo describes a number of exemptions Customs and Border Protection can rely on to evade records requests from the inspector general’s office — including national security exemptions.
A man with a handgun was arrested outside Representative Pramila Jayapal's home. (photo: Tom Williams/Getty)
According to a probable-cause statement, police officers arrived and found the man, whose name was redacted, outside the prominent congresswoman’s house on Saturday, “standing in the middle of the street” with a Glock pistol in a holster on his waist. A neighbor told officers that he was yelling “I’m going to kill you” and “Go back to India” at the home of the first Indian American woman elected to the House. Jayapal had called 911 to report that someone was using obscene language outside her house and that they may have fired a pellet gun. When the man was arrested late on Saturday night, officers claim he told them he “knew who lived at the residence and wanted to pitch a tent on their property.”
In a statement, Jayapal’s office said the Congresswoman is “very grateful for the swift and professional response from the Seattle Police Department, the U.S. Capitol Police, and the FBI investigators who are working together diligently on the investigation and ensuring that she and her family stay safe.” She told a reporter that in the aftermath of the incident that she would like a security detail.
According to a spokesperson for the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office who spoke to the Associated Press, the suspect was released on Wednesday because prosecutors did not have evidence to prove he committed a hate crime. Upon his release, Seattle police obtained an extreme-risk protection order via the state’s red-flag law, which required him to temporarily hand over his firearms and concealed-pistol license. “In a time of increased political violence, security concerns against any elected official should be taken seriously, as we are doing here,” the spokesperson said.
The incident outside Jayapal’s house comes a little over a month after 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske was arrested with a Glock outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. According to a criminal complaint, U.S. Marshals saw Roske get out of a taxi early in the morning with a suitcase and backpack, at which point he called a local emergency line and threatened to “kill a specific United States Supreme Court justice.” Days later, he was charged with attempting to murder a justice of the United States.
TOO MANY GUNS!
TOO MANY EXTREMISTS THE REPUBLICANS HAVE ENCOURAGED TO SOLVE THEIR DIFFERENCES WITH VIOLENCE & KILLINGS!
It's time to STOP REPUBLICAN HATE!
It's time to STOP REPUBLICAN DIVISIVENESS!
REPUBLICANS are incapable of addressing issues, finding solutions, so just continue to provoke ANGER, HATE & FEAR!
Enough is Enough!
It's time to stop supporting the WEALTHY MISFITS who continue to fund this with DARK MONEY like KOCH & MERCER & a host of others.
In 2019, John Bolton as national security adviser publicly supported Venezuelan opposition calls for the military to remove socialist President Nicolas Maduro. (photo: Jessica Hill/AP)
Observers criticise John Bolton for ‘casually boasting’ about how he helped plan coups in other countries.
Bolton made the remarks to CNN on Tuesday after the day’s congressional hearing into the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. Former President Donald Trump has faced accusations of inciting the violence in a last-ditch bid to remain in power after losing the 2020 election.
Speaking to CNN anchor Jake Tapper, however, Bolton suggested Trump was not competent enough to pull off a “carefully planned coup d’etat”, later adding: “As somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat – not here but, you know, [in] other places – it takes a lot of work. And that’s not what he [Trump] did.”
Tapper asked Bolton which attempts he was referring to.
“I’m not going to get into the specifics,” Bolton said, before mentioning Venezuela. “It turned out not to be successful. Not that we had all that much to do with it but I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president and they failed,” he said.
In 2019, Bolton as NSA publicly supported Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido’s call for the military to back his effort to remove socialist President Nicolas Maduro, arguing that Maduro’s re-election was illegitimate. Ultimately Maduro remained in power.
“I feel like there’s other stuff you’re not telling me [beyond Venezuela],” the CNN anchor said, prompting a reply from Bolton: “I’m sure there is.”
Many foreign policy experts have over the years criticised Washington’s history of interventions in other countries, from its role in the 1953 overthrow of then-Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and the Vietnam war, to its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan this century.
But it is highly unusual for US officials to openly acknowledge their roles in stoking unrest in foreign countries.
Bolton’s comments prompted a lot of reactions online.
“John Bolton, who’s served in highest positions in the US government, including UN ambassador, casually boasting about he’s helped plan coups in other countries,” Dickens Olewe, a BBC journalist from Kenya, wrote on Twitter.
Marc Owen Jones, assistant professor of Middle East Studies and Digital Humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University, said: “Every news outlet needs to cover this, not because it’s surprising in and of itself (although the candour is), but because it needs to be part of everyone’s political vocabulary in how the US (and other large powers) operate.”
JOHN BOLTON was a CHICKEN HAWK PNAC Co-Founder.
He could not be confirmed by a REPUBLICAN SENATE to be UN AMBASSADOR so was an INTERIM APPOINTMENT.
tRump appointed him to a position that didn't require SENATE APPROVAL.
John Bolton has been generously supported by MERCERS - look up his history.
MERCERS stash their $$ offshore to avoid supporting government on any level.
The Room Where It Happened by John Bolton review – a monument to his own grandiosity
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/28/the-room-where-it-happened-by-john-bolton-review-donald-trump
Amy Autry, an OB-GYN and professor at the University of California San Francisco, is spearheading a project that would provide abortion services on a boat in federal waters a few miles off the coastline. (photo: Slate/Getty)
A doctor explains her long-brewing plan to set up a floating clinic in the Gulf of Mexico.
Someday soon, they may not have to. To serve patients on the Gulf Coast who may be closer to the water than an abortion clinic, Amy Autry, an OB-GYN and professor at the University of California San Francisco, is spearheading a project that would provide abortion services on a boat in federal waters a few miles off the coastline. The nonprofit is called PRROWESS, an acronym that stands for Protecting Reproductive Rights Of Women Endangered by State Statutes.
Federal laws don’t currently prohibit abortion, so a floating clinic could legally operate without running afoul of state laws. Autry, who previously worked as an abortion provider in Wisconsin, hopes the clinic will be open to patients about three weeks out of every month. I spoke to Autry about her plans, the demand for a floating clinic, and the challenges she expects to face. Our conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Christina Cauterucci: How long have you been considering opening an abortion clinic on a boat?
Amy Autry: As reproductive rights were progressively assaulted, if you will, over the last several years—3 to 5 years probably—I had this idea of, hey, what about a boat on the Mississippi River? I knew that there were casino boats there, and there had to be something different about the water that was making that legal, because it wasn’t legal on land.
And then, although I wasn’t aware of Rebecca Gomperts when I thought of the idea, once I started telling people about my idea and was really ready to investigate it, I got connected with her. She’s the founder of Women on Waves.
They provided abortions on a boat, too, off the coast of other countries that banned abortion.
She’s a visionary and this is her life’s ambition, to protect abortion access. Her operation was a little bit different: She was in international waters, and she provided medication abortions. But she was incredibly helpful and gave me a lot of ideas.
And you’re not planning to offer medication abortions?
It’s a little bit of a different time now. It is—I don’t want to say easy, but you can get medication abortion through the mail now in the U.S. [Ed. Note: Some states have banned the provision of abortion medication by mail, but such laws can be difficult to enforce.] So we won’t be providing that on this floating reproductive health clinic. If you can get something through the mail, why would you get it on a boat?
What did Rebecca Gomperts tell you? Any dos or don’ts?
Yeah, it was amazing. So I mean, the water’s a little bit rougher where she was, like off the coast of Ireland, but she gave me some tips about the type of vessel they were on, like speed, and what she would’ve done differently.
What did she have to say about the speed of the boat?
She just recommended a faster boat.
So you had this idea. How did you get started?
We started investigating with maritime lawyers about 2 to 3 years ago, and ultimately decided that the Mississippi River was not the best option. And over the last year, as things started to accelerate with changes in American politics, we also started accelerating. We started looking at the Gulf, because essentially every state on the Gulf is restrictive on abortion. There is a swath of water in the Gulf Coast that’s federal, where our legal team believes we can provide reproductive health care.
How far are you in your planning right now?
We have done an immense amount of research, and we’ve been escalating over the last year. When the Dobbs decision got leaked, we accelerated more. And when the final decision came down, we were like, we have to go. So we put up our website, we opened our ActBlue account. And then I gave an initial radio interview—because we’ve had an overwhelming amount of support, both for finances and volunteers, which is really great, but we need big donors. If we get the money that we need or, for example, we can get a vessel donated, we’re ready to move.
When you say “we,” who are you talking about?
We have a team. I’m the public face. Our legal team is robust, and the reproductive health portion of our legal team is the Lawyering Project. They just won a big case in Minnesota this week. They’re a nonprofit reproductive health attorney group. We also have maritime lawyers. We have ship consultants, security consultants, and criminal defense.
How have you funded the work thus far?
Initially it didn’t really require funding, because we were doing a lot of research and all of the legal has been gratis. But once we started hiring consultants, we sought out seed money, which we were able to get from donors, particularly in California.
What about you? Is this your full-time job now?
No, no, it’s not. Right now, I’m able to do my full-time job and do this when I’m not doing my full-time job. I mean, this is a passion of mine and I will be involved in the consulting, but I’m not going to be retrofitting the vessel. But once we’re ready to go and be on the water, I want to be there, as one of the providers.
What will you have to do to turn a boat into a medical facility?
We know the rules of what the clinic has to look like. There are clinics on the water: There’s Mercy Ships, there’s military ships, there’s cruise ships. So there are specifications for a clinic that exists on the water. They’re not that much different than clinics that exist on the land.
Will you want it to be different than, let’s say, a cruise ship clinic?
We’ve had some incredible volunteers. People just say, “I want to volunteer. Here’s my skill, which is graphic design. Here’s my skill, which is decorating.” And my hope is to not only offer reproductive health services, but maybe we have some yoga, and it’s a nice place to be, and we have social services and legal services.
One of the biggest points of this whole thing is that this is not an adventure for rich people, right? Rich people can get wherever they want, whenever they want, for whatever they want. This is for the people in the southern parts of these states that, even with the innovative and creative people that are out there trying to maintain abortion access, they can’t get to a clinic within a reasonable timeframe for their lives. And so wouldn’t it be nice, if you were that person, to be on a warm boat, and you’re getting your services, but maybe you have some yoga, and you have a massage. I think that would be lovely if we could do that.
What kinds of medical services will you offer?
It’s a comprehensive reproductive health floating clinic. So it will have contraception, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, hopefully vaccination, and surgical terminations.
How far into pregnancy will you provide abortions?
We’re thinking 14 weeks at this time. I don’t know that that’s where we’ll always be, but you certainly don’t want to start something on the edge like this, and also doing more complicated procedures.
What about security? I imagine that’s a major concern.
Security and legal are probably the biggest challenges and worries. Along every part of this journey, if you will, we’re anticipating security issues and legal issues. Security is going to be a huge part of our price tag. I don’t think it’s a secret about the threat to providers and patients in our country today. Guns are everywhere. People have been killed. We are very serious about security.
Along those lines, I read somewhere that your vessel will be large enough that it would be equipped to have a helicopter land on it.
Yeah. We have vessel size specifications below which we won’t go, for reasons of stability in the water, and vessels above that size could accommodate a helicopter.
How will patients get to the clinic? Will it be by helicopter, by boat?
There’s some things that, because of security, we’re not going to be that transparent about. But they will have to get to the boat one way or another, right?
How close will you be able to get to shore?
It depends on the state. It’s a range of something like 3 to 9 miles. And we estimate in most cases, depending on what vessel you’re using, you could get out there in about 45 minutes.
What about staff members? Will they sleep on the boat, or will it come back to land every day?
A large vessel is going to constantly stay in federal water. There are rules in terms of crews, like that you have to have sleep quarters and rest times and stuff like that. The vessel will be large enough to accommodate that, and I would anticipate that providers would come out there not just for a day.
Do you know where the boat would be based out of, where it would come home to when it’s not in the water?
Its home water will be somewhere where access is legal.
Do you know about how many people live in places where a clinic in the Gulf would be closer and easier to get to than a clinic on land? The people you’re trying to serve?
If you look at, let’s just say Texas, for example, because that’s where I’ve done the most research, because of SB 8. So if you look at McAllen, Texas, or Galveston, it is difficult to get to an access state by driving. And you’d want to have an appointment, get services, and be back to your home within a day, right? So if you think of Galveston and the Houston area, that catchment area is 7 million people.
We estimate that, with the crew, and making sure that we consider the weather, and using a very conservative estimate on the size of the vessel, we could hopefully serve around 20 patients or clients a day. And so in a six month timeframe, that would be about 1,800 people. We have a lower limit in terms of the size, but we don’t really have an upper limit. So it would obviously cost more, but if we got funding for something bigger, then we could see more patients if there was a demand.
What do you know about existing demand? Are people willing to get care on a boat?
About a year ago, I had this thought like, “Oh my god, what if we come up with this great idea and people won’t do it, like they’re not interested?” So we have UCSF colleagues that do a ton of abortion research, and so we had them add onto some of their study work: “Would you pursue this option if it was available to you?” And people said they would. The majority of the people that said they would were from the South. It’s hard to know if they are more comfortable around water, or they just know that they’re in more restrictive states, it would be more challenging to get an abortion.
I know there actually are two little spots in the Gulf of Mexico that are international waters. So if there was a federal ban on abortion, it would still be possible to have a boat in the Gulf—it would just have to be much further off the coast. Is that something you’d consider if a federal ban gets passed?
We’ve definitely considered that. But the closer, the better, right?
How much funding do you need?
There are one-time costs, like acquiring the vessel and retrofitting it. And then there’s going to be ongoing costs. The patients’ services are going to be needs-based, so the patients will pay minimal to nothing. There’ll be crew costs, there’ll be medical equipment costs, there’ll be large ongoing security costs, liability. We’re estimating to get it up and going, it’ll be $20 million. And then we’ll need ongoing funding, probably around $2 million a year to keep it functional.
Do you know how that compares to a clinic on land?
Oh, I have no idea.
Well, that seems doable for a wealthy benefactor.
Yeah. Especially one that had a vessel that was kind of sitting somewhere that we could use.
The Rikers Island jail complex in New York. (photo: Seth Wenig/AP)
Two out of three prisoners are forced to work, in what is often referred to as modern day slavery
“I couldn’t work and wasn’t supposed to, and I couldn’t even talk for a year,” said Dokken, 60.
During the pandemic, she was sent to work at a nearby men’s prison to make lunches, despite not feeling safe doing so and having medical issues that weren’t treated, such as anemia and requiring dentures she never received.
“With my medical issues, I shouldn’t have been made to work at all,” said Dokken. “The pay is so low, and what they make you do, it’s just not right.”
Among the more than 1.2 million Americans imprisoned in federal and state prisons, two out of three are forced to work while imprisoned. The 13th amendment of the US constitution abolished slavery or involuntary servitude, but included an exception for prisoners; critics have called prison work modern-day slavery.
Dokken’s pay started at 12 cents an hour and prisoners have the ability after positive reviews to increase their pay to 24 cents an hour, while they’re charged full price when they buy basic necessities through the commissary.
Dokken explained that if prisoners refused to work, they would have privileges revoked and possibly get written up, which would follow them on their record to parole and probation.
Before she worked at the men’s prison, Dokken sewed clothing for the US military, and if she or other prisoners didn’t reach a productivity quota – 2,500 shorts a day – their pay of just a few cents an hour would be reduced.
According to a June 2022 report published by the American Civil Liberties Union, prison labor generates more than $11bn annually, with more than $2bn generated from the production of goods, and more than $9bn generated through prison maintenance services. Wages range on average from 13 cents to 52 cents per hour, but many prisoners are paid nothing at all, and their low wages are subject to various deductions.
Sarah Corley was incarcerated in Missouri and Georgia during periods over the past decade, and worked without pay while imprisoned in Georgia and with varying pay in Missouri from a few cents to a few dollars a day, depending on the work assignment.
An artist, Corley said she now sells paintings for a few hundred dollars a piece, but while incarcerated, the correctional staff consistently commissioned her to do art work for their personal use as one of her work assignments, without any compensation.
“I was painting very expensive paintings for the staff and they were getting it for free,” said Corley. “The compensation I got was pictures of work afterwards. Realizing how many pieces I just made for free, it was kind of mind blowing, because as most of them are a 16 by 20 foot canvas, around 25 pieces. Today I sell them for $400 to $600, and those officers just got them for free.”
Corley explained that it’s difficult working in prison while basic necessities sold through the prison commissary are so expensive and prisoners aren’t provided adequate food or basic products. She said it was hard to take care of yourself if you don’t have money already or someone outside who is putting money in your account. After work, Corley noted you have to fight for a shower or get in line, and don’t have any time to rest and recuperate from work in prison conditions.
She also worked for the Department of Transportation while imprisoned, performing lawn care, picking up trash and roadkill, and spraying pesticides, all without any on- the-job training or adequate safety protections.
“Those are hard labor jobs, especially for women, and not getting paid, they’re hard on your body. You’re carrying extremely heavy backpacks with chemicals in them, we were chopping down trees, stuff you wouldn’t voluntarily do. It’s a lot of work for no money,” she said.
The ACLU report said 76% of workers surveyed reported they were forced to work or faced additional punishment, 70% said they could not afford basic necessities on their prison labor wages, 70% reported receiving no formal job training and 64% reported concerns for their safety on the job.
Prison workers are also excluded from basic worker protections under federal and state laws, from workers’ rights in regards to safety protection, union rights, or basic wage laws.
The type of work varies, from prison maintenance duties such as janitorial, food preparation, maintenance and repair, or essential services, to public works assignment such as construction, prison industries that produce goods and services to other government agencies through a state-owned corporations, or producing goods and services for a private corporation.
James Finch first worked outside doing landscaping work while in prison in Florida about10 years ago and claimed he was sent back to work after going to the infirmary for heat stress.
He later worked at a recycling plant while in prison, without supervision or training, and while working there started experiencing Bell’s Palsy symptoms – partial paralysis of his face – and didn’t seek proper treatment because it required taking a prison van to the hospital several times a week while shackled.
“I never received a bit of pay for any of the work that I had done,” Finch said. “I thought my face would return to normal, in most cases it does, but mine didn’t.”
Aisha Northington, who was released in 2011 from prison in Georgia, worked throughout her sentence for no pay at all for whatever work was assigned.
“I’ve even seen some people that refused, and they were sent to solitary confinement,” said Northington. “It’s very disheartening. It needs to stop. It’s inhumane.”
President Biden says he always talks about human rights abroad. But he stopped short of saying he would raise the 2018 killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets Saudi leaders on Friday. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
But a day ahead of his meeting with the crown prince, Biden stopped short of saying he would raise the issue directly, saying "my views on Khashoggi have been made absolutely, positively clear."
"I have never been quiet about talking about human rights," Biden said at a press conference. When pressed, he said that he always brings up human rights, but said that his "position on Khashoggi is so clear — if anyone doesn't understand it in Saudi Arabia or anywhere else, then they haven't been around for a while."
Biden emphasized that his reasons for visiting the kingdom are "much broader" and noted he will have the opportunity to promote U.S. interests at a summit with nine heads of the state from the region.
"I think we have an opportunity to reassert what I think we made a mistake of walking away from: our influence in the Middle East," Biden said.
"We can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum — a vacuum that is filled by China and/or Russia against the interests of both Israel and the United States and many other countries," he said.
Biden and Lapid say they'll work together on Iran — but differ on the role of diplomacy
Biden spent much of Thursday in meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid in Jerusalem. The leaders signed a joint agreement in which they committed to never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. The agreement said that the U.S. is "prepared to use all elements of its national power to ensure that."
Biden said in an Israeli TV interview that the US would resort to military action against Iran as a last resort.
Lapid focused on the need for deterrence in his remarks. "Words will not stop them, Mr. President. Diplomacy will not stop them," Lapid said. "The only thing that will stop Iran is knowing that if they continue to develop their nuclear program, the free world will use force."
Biden said he has hopes for diplomacy and a return to the Iran nuclear deal, but noted he was waiting for a response from Iran. "We've laid out for the leadership of Iran what we're willing to accept," Biden said. "But we're not going to wait forever."
Biden expressed enthusiasm for deals negotiated by Trump White House
Biden is expected to meet with Palestinian Authoriy President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday. In his press conference with Lapid, Biden reiterated his longstanding support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But Biden spent more time talking about Israel's growing relationship with its Arab neighbors in the region. "Israel integration in the region, Israel's peace with its neighbors — these are essential goals," Biden said.
The regional integration efforts are the stated goal of the Abraham Accords, deals brokered by the Trump White House in 2020 to normalize relations between Israel and a number of Arab countries, including Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco.
It is one component of former president Trump's foreign policy that the Biden administration has fully embraced.
"We'll also continue building on the Abraham Accords, which I strongly support because they deepen Israel's integration into the broader region and establish lasting ties for business, cooperation and tourism," Biden said.
Biden noted that he will fly directly from Israel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia — a sign of a stronger relationship between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Israeli Prime Minister Lapid indicated his country was also committed to the work of integrating itself into the region.
"Israel wants peace and believes in peace. We will never yield an inch of our security. We are obligated to be cautious at every step," Lapid said. "But to any country, any nation that wants peace and normalization with us, we say 'Ahalan wasahalan, shalom, welcome.'"
NOAA scientists traveled to the Taylor Energy oil spill site in 2018 to evaluate flow rates. (photo: NOAA)
“As of July 12, 2022, 1,016,929 gallons of oil have been collected from the MC-20 site,” a Coast Guard news release stated. According to the Associated Press, the amount of oil collected just since 2019 could fill about 1.5 Olympic swimming pools.
The MC-20 site, or Mississippi Canyon Block 20, is located about 11 miles south of Louisiana’s coastline. The Coast Guard is overseeing a subsea containment system that collects about 900 gallons of oil a day, while the government continues to develop a more permanent solution to clean up the oil from the 18-year-old spill.
“Though the containment system is considered a great success, the federal government is exploring all available response options, including to properly decommission the impacted wells on site,” said Captain Kelly Denning, the Coast Guard’s Federal On-Scene Coordinator for the incident.
In December 2021, Taylor Energy settled with the U.S., agreeing to transfer the funds in its $432 million Taylor Energy Decommissioning Trust to the U.S. Department of the Interior to go toward decommissioning the wells and remediating the contaminated soil. The company is also required to pay an additional $43 million (all of its remaining assets) for civil penalties and natural resource damages.
While 1,016,929 gallons of oil has been collected over the past three years, neither the Coast Guard nor Taylor Energy has an estimate of how much oil in total has spilled since the disaster began in 2004.
Estimates from 2012 said it was around 7.5 gallons per day, and 2015 estimates put the amount around 12 gallons per day. Taylor Energy formerly had estimates of about 3 or 4 gallons of “‘remnant oil’ being ‘sparged from the sediments’” daily, according to a 2018 court filing. In the same court filing, the U.S. put estimates much higher.
“Instead, as the United States’ experts have determined, approximately 250 to 700 barrels of oil a day are leaking from MC20 (there are 42 gallons of oil in a barrel), and the oil’s chemical characteristics are consistent with ongoing releases of oil from multiple wells,” the filing read.
The company capped nine oil wells, but the remaining 16 remained open, spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
So TAYLOR ENERGY agreed to this monetary settlement because they were at fault:
In December 2021, Taylor Energy settled with the U.S., agreeing to transfer the funds in its $432 million Taylor Energy Decommissioning Trust to the U.S. Department of the Interior to go toward decommissioning the wells and remediating the contaminated soil. The company is also required to pay an additional $43 million (all of its remaining assets) for civil penalties and natural resource damages.
60 MINUTES - NEWSMAKERS
Taylor Energy Oil Spill: Stanching the longest-running oil spill you've likely never heard of
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/taylor-oil-spill-louisiana-coast-guard-60-minutes-2021-11-07/
Ongoing Gulf Spill Refutes Claim U.S. Could Expand Drilling Safely
https://www.nrdc.org/media/2018/181023-0
It's unclear if the oil was for the US market:
Taylor Energy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_Energy
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