Justice Clarence Thomas violates federal financial disclosure laws; DOJ MUST investigate!

 

In a very reals and direct sense, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas robbed the American people of their right to a conflict-free Supreme Court. ProPublican reporting revealed that, " Billionaire Harlan Crow Bought Property From Justice Thomas. The Justice Didn't Disclose the Deal." This is not only an ethical transgression by Thomas (and not his first), but it violates federal financial disclosure laws. The Supreme Court is deeply compromised. The Department of Justice must investigate and, it the evidence warrants it, hold accountable Clarence Thomas. The very legitimacy of the Department of Justice depends on it.

FOCUS: Jay Caspian Kang | Bob Lee's Murder and San Francisco's So-Called Crime Epidemic

 

15 April 23

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FOCUS: Jay Caspian Kang | Bob Lee's Murder and San Francisco's So-Called Crime Epidemic
Jay Caspian Kang, The New Yorker
Kang writes: "The progressive prosecutor - Larry Krasner of Philadelphia; Kim Foxx of Cook County, Illinois; or Ramin Fatehi of Norfolk, Virginia, to name a few - serves under the influence of two seemingly conflicting truths." 

The killing of a tech executive reveals the cycle of outrage that puts enormous pressure on progressive district attorneys.

The progressive prosecutor—Larry Krasner of Philadelphia; Kim Foxx of Cook County, Illinois; or Ramin Fatehi of Norfolk, Virginia, to name a few—serves under the influence of two seemingly conflicting truths. The first: a whole lot of people—especially the press and the police—blame their lenient bail and sentencing practices for every murder, robbery, and homeless encampment. The second: despite mostly bad press, public outcry, and the accusation from the right that they are pawns of George Soros, who has sent them to single-handedly turn America’s great cities into wastelands, they keep getting elected. Chesa Boudin, the former San Francisco district attorney who was removed from office via a recall vote, made the Bay Area an epicenter of debate over whether this movement of progressive prosecutors will actually break cycles of incarceration and usher in a better, more humane criminal-justice system or whether they will flood the streets with irredeemably violent criminals.

The region has seen two high-profile murders in the past few months, both of which will shape the way in which the public thinks about the progressive-district-attorney movement. Earlier this month, Bob Lee, a well-connected tech executive and the founder of Cash App, was stabbed to death in San Francisco during the early-morning hours. The news kicked up what has now become a predictable and exhausting reflex in which dozens of relatively prominent people with large social-media followings declare that the city has turned into a lawless pit of homelessness, drug addiction, and violent crime. Before a single relevant detail was released about the suspect in Lee’s murder, this chorus had already blamed it on the chaos brought on by Boudin’s administration. The sentiment was perhaps best summed up by Matt Ocko, a local venture capitalist, who tweeted, “Chesa Boudin, & the criminal-loving city council that enabled him & a lawless SF for years, have Bob’s literal blood on their hands. Take action.” David Sacks, another venture capitalist and one of the hosts of the “All-In” podcast, predicted “dollars to dimes” that Lee’s case would be similar to the tragedy of Brianna Kupfer, a U.C.L.A. student who was fatally stabbed by a homeless person. Elon Musk also chimed in with “Violent crime in SF is horrific and even if attackers are caught, they are often released immediately. Is the city taking stronger action to incarcerate repeat violent offenders @BrookeJenkinsSF?”

Musk’s tweet was addressed to Brooke Jenkins, the tough-on-crime career prosecutor who replaced Boudin. Upon taking office, Jenkins promised to be everything her predecessor was not; she says she will impose harsh sentences on fentanyl dealers, crack down on robberies, and seek harsh prison sentences against violent criminals. Her job, in many ways, is to appease critics like Ocko and Musk and clean up a violent-crime epidemic that simply does not exist. San Francisco, despite what Ocko and Musk say, has a relatively low murder rate compared to other major cities.

On Thursday, news came that the San Francisco Police Department had made an arrest in Lee’s murder. The suspect is not a deranged lunatic or career criminal left free to roam the hills of the city by a district attorney who left office nine months ago but, rather, a fellow tech entrepreneur with whom Lee was familiar. Given these realities and the fact that they will not quiet the doomsayers who see San Francisco as a post-apocalyptic zombie set filled with violent psychotic homeless people, Jenkins’s popularity among the Ockos, Sackses, and Musks will likely hinge on how she handles the public-relations part of the job, namely how loudly she renounces Boudin and his movement and how well she can tell the story that the streets are safer.

In February, on the other side of the Bay, Jen Angel, a baker, book publicist, and political activist, was dragged to her death by a getaway car driven by two men who had just robbed her in Oakland. After Angel’s death, her friends, family, and partner put out statements that she believed in restorative justice, and would not have wanted her assailants to spend any time in prison.

Angel’s case will be taken up by Pamela Price, the progressive district attorney of Alameda County, who has spent the first four months of her first term mired in the types of scandals that ultimately sank Boudin. First came the grumblings that Price, a former civil-rights attorney, was in over her head. Then came a series of high-level departures from Price’s office, including Jill Nerone, a veteran prosecutor who, in her resignation letter, wrote that she felt that she could no longer protect the rights of victims of violent crime. In February, Price’s office worked out a plea deal with a man who had been convicted of three homicides. In exchange for a significantly reduced sentence, the man was going to publicly apologize. The plea was rejected by an Alameda County judge. In response, Price has moved to bar the judge from presiding over any criminal cases in Alameda County.

These stories have been accompanied by the case of Jasper Wu, a toddler who was killed during a highway shootout in 2021. Price’s office is currently reviewing the charges filed by her predecessor against the three men suspected of Wu’s killing, which, in turn, has activated the same local Chinese American groups who protested Boudin for what they saw to be his callous handling of a series of attacks on Asian Americans in the city. They believe that Price, like Boudin, is more committed to protecting criminals than protecting Asian residents.

In response to the criticism from Wu’s advocates, Price put out a lengthy video statement on social media in which she talks about the racist comments and messages her office has received in reaction to its perceived inaction in the Wu case, which, while horrible in their own right, don’t have much of anything to do with what she, an elected official, plans to do about the murder. This past Sunday, a five-year-old girl was shot and killed in another senseless freeway shooting in the East Bay, a day before a planned protest at the Alameda County Courthouse, where a crowd gathered to demand justice for Jasper Wu and call on Price to remember that “victims come first.”

Price also singled out a journalist—the local TV news reporter Dion Lim—who had released unflattering e-mails from Price’s office and has interviewed Jasper Wu’s family, who are anxious that they will not see justice. Boudin also had his run-ins with Lim, who is mostly known for posting videos of violent attacks on Asian American Bay Area residents to her social-media accounts. One can feel however one wants about the salaciousness of Lim’s reporting, but it is unusual for two separate district attorneys to single out a reporter, question her integrity, and accuse her of trying to sabotage their mandates. One television reporter should not be able to derail a progressive prosecutor’s entire office. The targeting of Lim by these two, separate administrations reflects the unique spoiler role that local media can play in the tenure of a progressive district attorney. Crime reporting is the lifeblood of local news, and finding someone to blame is the job of the opinion makers. Every murder, assault, or rash of robberies becomes a referendum on the progressive prosecutor. The news will hit, a suspect will be named, and if the perp has any rap sheet at all—and it’s likely that they will—everyone will start asking why this thug was out on the streets in the first place. That Price and Boudin both seem more concerned with calling out a reporter for doing her job than providing actual answers to the public’s inevitable questions exposes what could kindly be called a confused set of priorities in their respective administrations. More important, it suggests that there may be a gap between what the public hears from progressive prosecutors about reducing sentences for, say, low-level drug offenders—a broadly popular policy, especially in blue cities—and their willingness to extend the same leniency toward violent criminals.

The focus on Lim is especially strange because while the local media still plays a role in selecting which crimes capture the public’s attention, their role in shaping the narrative around law and order has been ceded, in large part, to social-media clout. For both Angel’s and Lee’s murders, the outcry in the Bay Area wasn’t measured by the number of headlines but, rather, by the volume of high-follower tweets. Since both Angel and Lee were seemingly beloved members of highly visible communities—Angel was well known within East Bay organizing circles; Lee had worked in the C-suite of one of the region’s large tech companies—their murders were widely discussed on social media; this, in turn, prompted local news to cover them even more.

It’s important to distinguish the type of social media that actually drives these backlashes. The fear of crime often gets presented as a response to numbers—murder rates, numbers of robberies, carjackings, and assaults—but it’s primarily an anecdotal phenomenon that very often runs counter to what all the metrics would suggest. Today, the bulk of the fearmongering appears to exist online, where an informal rubric of virality determines how much the country, at large, hears about one crime or another. On global social networks such as Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook, amplification usually depends on whether there’s footage of the crime and whether the circumstances, especially around the race of the attacker and the victim, match up with some larger political narrative.

But all that sharing, especially on the national level, doesn’t seem to contribute all that much to fear of crime, which is usually a local phenomenon. Nextdoor and Citizen, apps that provide user-generated updates on crimes in your neighborhood, accelerate people’s fear of crime in ways that viral national stories cannot. These localized networks, whether on platforms like WeChat or in large WhatsApp groups, connect people who have similar fears. You might be interested in the break-in or assault in another city for any number of reasons, political or personal, but you really get scared only when you see the little icon denoting a crime pinned on the map just a few blocks from where you live.

All this seems to set up a grim reality for progressive prosecutors: violent crimes will happen, they will be sensationalized by the local media, which will blame the progressive district attorney; this, in turn, will activate local online networks, which, most likely, will also blame the progressive district attorney. In San Francisco, that feedback cycle eventually led to Boudin’s recall. Price may very well be heading to a similar fate. But this is where the other truth must be considered: these are all officials who won elections. Tough-on-crime candidates like Paul Vallas in Chicago and Rick Caruso in Los Angeles both lost to progressive opponents. In many elections that pit a progressive candidate against a tough-on-crime moderate, the progressive has often relied on a coalition of Black and younger, white, college-educated voters. In Boudin’s recall election, for example, one of his strongest areas of support was northern Bernal Heights, one of the whitest and most college-educated neighborhoods in the city.

The reality is that large, coastal American cities are still filled with a lot of bona-fide liberals who want reform in the criminal-justice system and who do not buy into every crime narrative that’s put out by their local media. In the Bay Area, liberals comprise a much stronger majority of the population than tech billionaires and venture capitalists who vaguely gesture at solutions but can’t be bothered to read a national violent-crime report. Boudin’s recall certainly reflected a growing frustration with his office, but it was primarily driven by the super-wealthy and Asian Americans, who make up about a third of the city’s population. On the whole, then, the disagreement in Oakland, San Francisco, and many other major American cities isn’t between Democrats and Republicans but, rather, between a coalition of immigrants and wealthy white voters versus Black and educated, progressive white voters.

The future of how crime—especially violent crime—is handled in big American cities will be determined along the fault line between those progressive voters and the angry residents who feel as if all the criminals are being dumped on their block once they get released by a lenient district attorney. If progressives want to avoid endless recalls, they will have to pay far more attention to how high-profile cases like those of Jasper Wu, Bob Lee, and Jen Angel activate communities and place pressure on everyone else in the political apparatus. They, like Jenkins, will have to engage in a little bit of magical storytelling. But even that strategy poses a problem: If you go hard-line in cases only when there’s a large, vocal outcry; if, in essence, you make choices on whom to prosecute to the full extent of the law, have you really reformed the inequalities within the criminal-justice system?

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Jim Jordan targets universities targeting disinformation

 

Joyce Vance talks Clarence Thomas ProPublica report and Evan Corcoran recusal

 

Joyce Vance breaks down the legalities involved in judicial disclosures and recusals for Justice Clarence Thomas and Evan Corcoran. She points out discrepancies in Thomas' disclosures and calls Corcoran's recusal "overdue." "There's a lot of reason to believe that when these sorts of deals aren't disclosed in the middle of other disclosures, that there's something that the person who fills the forms out is trying to hide," Vance shares.

FOCUS: Kaytlin Bailey | It's Perfect That a Sex Worker Could Bring Down a President

 

15 April 23

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FOCUS: Kaytlin Bailey | It's Perfect That a Sex Worker Could Bring Down a President
Kaytlin Bailey, The Daily Beast
Bailey writes: "Because Stormy Daniels is not governed by the same niceties that define the political class, she is able to reflect back to us what Trump really is, and what he has always been." 

Because Stormy Daniels is not governed by the same niceties that define the political class, she is able to reflect back to us what Trump really is, and what he has always been.

Stormy Daniels has done what the press and political brass of both the Republican and Democratic parties have been unable to do: hold Donald Trump accountable for his lies. Through her steadfast insistence on knowing what she knows, Daniels has offered us an opportunity to see clearly through the pretense of patriarchal power. In so doing she has joined a proud legacy of high-profile, financially independent and socially shocking women who insisted on speaking unabashedly about the things powerful men would rather them not say.

The facts of the case are that on Oct. 28, 2016, days before the presidential election, Daniels signed a non-disclosure agreement in which she pledged to not publicly discuss her relationship with Donald Trump in exchange for payment. Trump denies the affair but has since admitted he reimbursed his then-attorney for the hush money payments. This payout scheme has resulted in 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.

I take Daniels at her word when she told the press, “My goal is the same as it has always been—to stand up for myself and take back my voice after being bullied and intimidated by President Trump and his minions.”

It is not an accident of history that the first case Trump was indicted for started with his efforts to silence Daniels. And it is because of her status as an already maligned woman that she has been able to withstand, and seems determined to see through, the consequences of her story. She said recently in a 90-minute interview with Piers Morgan, “You can’t really shame somebody who’s been seen naked everywhere. Like, what are you going to do, release nudes of me?” It is this attitude that has allowed her, and many women like her, to tell the truth and shame the devil.

In 1872, then presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull held Henry Ward Beecher to account for his hypocrisy by infamously publishing the details of his extramarital affairs in her newspaper. For this she was prosecuted, by Anthony Comstock, for obscenity. Similarly to Daniels, Woodhull made no accusation of violence or coercion, she simply exercised her freedom to print what so many already knew. Comstock would go on to pass the Comstock Act, which made it illegal to send “obscene, lewd or lascivious” material through the mail.

Considering information about contraception obscene, this law prevented the widespread distribution of birth control in the U.S. for generations, and was recently cited by a federal judge in Texas in his decision to invalidate the FDA’s approval of an abortion pill, mifepristone.

Woodhull grew up poor in a small town in rural Ohio. The eldest daughter of a snake oil salesman she started her speaking career as a child preacher and went on to become a well-known medium, assumed sex worker, and spiritual and financial adviser to Cornelius Vanderbilt. She went on to become the first female broker on Wall Street, the first woman to address Congress on the issue of suffrage, and the first woman to run for president.

Days before her arrest Victoria Woodhull said, “Until women come to hold men to equal account as they do the women with whom they consort; or until they regard these women as just as respectable as the men who support them, society will remain in its present scale of moral excellence.” She added, “Denounce me for advocating freedom if you can, and I will bear your curse with a better resignation.”

Like Woodhull, Daniels grew up poor on the outskirts of New Orleans and she had already accomplished a lot by the age of 26, when she met Donald Trump. She was a well-known, and well-paid, adult film actress, writer, director, and had recently enjoyed a cameo appearance in Judd Apatow’s 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin.

In 2010 she mounted a senatorial campaign in her home state of Louisiana. Both women have been mocked and dismissed by their contemporaries both for their brazen sexuality and their interest in the occult. In a recent interview with New York magazine, Daniels consulted an oracle deck reading from some text accompanying the cards, “By clinging to old habits or things that were once true, something difficult is about to be forced upon us. We must release these outgrown or outworn ways of thinking to move forward to the next stage.”

“Whore” is an early word, and it comes from words that mean “woman who knows.” Knowledge, especially sexual knowledge, as a corrupting influence on women is a trope as old as the story of Adam and Eve. Women who know too much, and who choose to say what they know, have been violently punished and socially ostracized for as long as recorded history.

But sex workers in general, and Stormy Daniels in particular, have freed themselves from the limitations of respectability and social or sexual compliance. Instead she became a self-made success in a deeply stigmatized industry: porn. Because Daniels is not governed by the same polite niceties that define the tools of the political class, she was able to reflect back to all of us what Trump really is, and what he has always been—a clown of white supremacist chauvinism.

Stormy Daniels had sex with Donald Trump in 2005 at a golf course. She has never insinuated that the affair was violent or coercive, but it did happen. When Trump became the Republican nominee leading up to the 2016 election, questions about his personal character and private sexual choices became relevant in an unprecedented way. Rather than own his choices, Trump’s efforts to memory-hole this affair reflect a repeated pattern of denying reality and avoiding accountability. This pattern is illustrative of Trump’s core belief that his version of a story is more important than reality—a demonstrably dangerous quality in a leader, especially the President of the United States.

Trump has a well-documented and decades-long habit of debasing the people he associates with by insisting that they deny their own reality. Powerful, well-resourced, intelligent people have all degraded their own characters by refusing to accept what they know to be true. But Stormy Daniels, and many misbehaved women before her, insisted upon doing just that, and in so doing she has demonstrated a kind of moral courage that has always represented an existential threat to powerful men behaving badly. Women who know, and who say what they know—many men call those women whores, but I think it’s high time we recognize them as heroes.

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Clarence Thomas’s inexcusably poor judgment

 

April 15, 2023

Through a shocking report last week, we learned that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had been accepting lavish gifts from real estate mogul and GOP megadonor Harlan Crow for more than twenty years. Then, a few days later, we learned that Crow had purchased property from Thomas, creating a direct line of cash flow between them. Thomas failed to disclose any of this information. The matter of whether Thomas broke the law is not in question. Every time over the past two decades that he failed to disclose the luxury trips and gifts he received from Crow, he violated the Ethics in Government Act, which undoubtedly applies to Supreme Court justices. And since this was not the first time Thomas was scrutinized for failing to make financial disclosures as required by law, it’s clear that this failure to disclose was no innocent mistake. It’s crucial that Thomas be held accountable. A lapse in judgment like this sets a dangerous precedent unless it’s made completely clear that the behavior won't be tolerated. More than anything, it’s important that the issue of wavering trust in the Supreme Court is treated with the primacy it deserves. After all, the integrity of the institution rests on the public’s trust. We’re finalizing a complaint to the Department of Justice demanding they hold Justice Thomas accountable. To stay in the loop on our complaint, make sure you are subscribed to our email updates. POGO PODCASTS The Continuous Action Returns The Continuous Action is back for Season 2. Follow along this season as host Walter Shaub dissects the most pressing challenges to our troubled republic and the continuous action that democracy demands of us all. Episode 2: Anything Goes OP-ED The Supreme Court needs a code of ethics. Here’s one to consider. Using the rules applicable to all other federal judges as a baseline, our organizations’ proposed code includes: clear guidelines for recusal; prohibitions against specific kinds of conduct that create an appearance of impartiality; more rigorous obligations for disclosure; and standards for transparent decision-making. Read on Boston Globe PODCAST The Continuous Action, S2 E2: Anything Goes Congressional stock trading is out of control. Representative Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) joins Walt Shaub on The Continuous Action to talk about her plan to end it. Listen Now QUOTE OF THE WEEK “We should not be afraid to say that, as part of the movement for justice, we have to deal with the technology, and we have to tear it up. Politicians hate hearing that. ... but that is the solution.” Freddy Martinez, Senior Researcher, in Government Technology OVERHEARD ONE LINERS “Members of Congress have long said, ‘It’s currently in litigation. That’s not our role as legislators, to weigh in on specific cases.’” Tim Stretton, Director of the Congressional Oversight Initiative, in Business Insider   “One major potential pitfall of surging weapon production is the increased risk of corporate price gouging.” Julia Gledhill, Analyst for the Center for Defense Information, on NPR   “Broadly, the issue of money and politics is the way it impacts conflicts of interest.” Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, Government Affairs Manager, in Washington Examiner Enjoyed this weekend’s edition of the Weekly Spotlight? Forward to a friend. Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Welcome! 👋 Subscribe here.   WANT MORE FROM POGO? Eyes on the federal government from every angle:   Paper Trail: Quick links to the news in the world of government oversight The Bunker: Military intelligence from POGO's Mark Thompson The Bridge: Wade through the jargon with Spurthi Kontham   🎧 The Continuous Action Podcast 📺 YouTube 📱 Instagram 💸 Support our work

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Clarence Thomas' Family Got $133K From Nazi-Obsessed Billionaire

 

 

15 April 23

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Clarence Thomas' Family Got $133K From Nazi-Obsessed Billionaire
Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling Stone
Ramirez writes: "Justice Clarence Thomas and his family sold $133,000 worth of real estate properties to conservative billionaire (and collector of Nazi memorabilia) Harlan Crow - without disclosing the transaction as required by federal ethics laws." 

 

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Clarence Thomas' Family Got $133K From Nazi-Obsessed Billionaire
Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling Stone
Ramirez writes: "Justice Clarence Thomas and his family sold $133,000 worth of real estate properties to conservative billionaire (and collector of Nazi memorabilia) Harlan Crow - without disclosing the transaction as required by federal ethics laws." 

In addition to the private jet trips and luxury vacations, Thomas omitted a six-figure real estate deal with Harlan Crow from his financial disclosures

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his family sold $133,000 worth of real estate properties to conservative billionaire (and collector of Nazi memorabilia) Harlan Crow — without disclosing the transaction as required by federal ethics laws, according to ProPublica. The report published Thursday expands on previous reporting linking Thomas to a string of expensive, unreported gifts from Crow.

According to the report, Crow purchased a house and two lots owned by Thomas, his mother, and relatives of his deceased brother in 2014. Crow would go on to spend tens of thousands of dollars on renovations to the home while Thomas’ mother continued to live in it.

In his financial disclosure forms from the year of the purchase, Thomas left blank a section for reporting the identities of parties involved in private transactions with the justice. Experts say the omission could constitute a direct violation of ethics laws, as disclosure is required for real estate sales or purchases over $1,000.

ProPublica previously reported on Thomas’ friendship with Crow. The billionaire treated the Supreme Court justice to rides on his private jet, luxury resort vacations, and yachting trips on a virtually yearly basis. The pair are so close that there’s even a painting of Thomas and Crow smoking cigars displayed at Crow’s 100-acre invitation-only resort in the Adirondacks. The gifts were never disclosed.

Thomas responded with incredulity as to why anyone would think one of the most powerful figures in government accepting boatloads of fancy perks from a conservative megadonor would be a problem. “Harlan and Kathy Crow are among our dearest friends, and we have been friends for over twenty-five years. As friends do, we have joined them on a number of family trips during the more than quarter century we have known them,” he said in a statement.

This is not Thomas’ first brush with ethics controversies. The Supreme Court justice has been involved in several key rulings regarding investigations into former President Trump’s actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election. Thomas’ wife, Ginni Thomas, was active in efforts to overturn the results of the election, even going so far as to pressure state officials to act on behalf of the former president.

As the scandal surrounding the Thomas’ connections grows, watchdogs and lawmakers have called for an official investigation. Senate Democrats wrote a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts asking him to “immediately open” a probe into Thomas, warning that Democrats would consider legislation to address the issue directly if the court did not move for accountability.

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Donald Trump. (photo: Erin Schaff/NYT/Redux)

Six Takeaways From Trump's New Financial Disclosure
Michael C. Bender and Eric Lipton, The New York Times
Excerpt: "Former President Donald J. Trump provided the first look at his post-presidency business dealings on Friday with a new personal financial disclosure." 

In a 101-page filing, Donald J. Trump revealed lower-than-expected values on his social media company and sizable bank loans.

Former President Donald J. Trump provided the first look at his post-presidency business dealings on Friday with a new personal financial disclosure. Though light on specifics, the documents filed with the Federal Election Commission revealed lower-than-expected values on his social media company, two additional hefty bank loans and a new income stream for former first lady Melania Trump.

The former president filed his disclosure after requesting multiple extensions. He had been warned that he would face fines if he failed to file within 30 days of a March 16 deadline.

The financial disclosure shows cumulative income from January 2021 to Dec. 15, 2022, as required by the Federal Election Commission, and the value of assets as of December 2022, according to a person familiar with the documents.

Here are six takeaways from the 101-page filing.

Trump’s social media company takes a valuation hit

The disclosure valued the parent company of Truth Social, the former president’s social media platform and personal megaphone, at between $5 million and $25 million. That reported value for the parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, was considerably less than the potential $9 billion valuation for the company when it announced a merger in October 2021 with a cash-rich special purpose acquisition company called Digital World Acquisition Company.

The estimate reflected the current value for Mr. Trump’s holding and was not an attempt to price the assets after a potential estimate, a person familiar with the filing said. Still, the intrinsic value of Trump Media is considerably less than he had hoped for when he launched the company in early 2021.

The merger deal has been held up by dual investigations by federal prosecutors and securities regulators, causing the stock of Digital World to tumble from a high of $97 a share to its current price of $13.10 a share. Still, if the deal is ever completed, it will bring at least $300 million in badly needed cash to Trump Media and potentially increase Mr. Trump’s paper wealth by a considerable amount. And Mr. Trump stands to get 70 million shares.

The deadline for Trump Media and Digital World to complete the merger is early September. The Securities and Exchange Commission, which is investigating events surrounding the proposed merger along with federal prosecutors, has yet to sign off on the deal.

A spokeswoman for Trump Media said the company remained convinced it was going to reach “billions of dollars in value.”

The filing also showed that Mr. Trump, who is listed as chairman of Trump Media, owns 90 percent of the company. The filing does not identify the owners of the other 10 percent of the company. The company’s chief executive is Devin Nunes, the former Republican congressman from California.

Trump’s online trading cards show underwhelming early sales

Late last year, Mr. Trump announced a foray into digital assets known as NFTs, or nonfungible tokens. Trump Cards, virtual trading cards illustrated with a variety of cartoonish images of the former president, first went up for sale on Dec. 15.

Expectations for the deal — orchestrated by Bill Zanker, a serial entrepreneur who had previously co-authored a book with Mr. Trump and paid him millions of dollars in speaking fees — were high: NFTs had commanded stunning prices in recent years, with one single token topping $22 million in early 2022.

Privately, Mr. Trump had been assured the venture could hit as much as $100 million in sales, but early returns suggested a less spectacular outcome, with analysts estimating less than $6 million in total revenue by early February.

Mr. Trump’s new financial disclosure states that the company he created for the NFT project, CIC Digital LLC, had between $100,001 and $1 million in income. But because the filing cuts off on Dec. 15 — the exact day that Trump Cards began trading — it was unclear how much of the early sales of the NFTs was included.

Public data on cryptocurrency trading shows that 44,000 of the Trump Cards were sold, at $99 apiece, in the first 24 hours of trading. In addition, numerous cards were sold on the secondary market on Dec. 15, each of which would net a royalty of 10 percent under terms of the offering.

Mr. Zanker has declined requests to comment on how sales of the Trump Cards are split or what overhead costs might be. But the report does provide one clue about the deal from Mr. Trump’s perspective. It lists the overall value of CIC Digital at between $500,000 and $1 million — suggesting that the NFT venture may not represent the vast windfall it was supposed to be.

One executive said the income listed in the financial report did not reflect much of the money Mr. Trump has made in NFT sales. Overall, several million dollars of Trump NFTs have been sold, the executive said, with the bulk of the gross sales going to Mr. Trump under terms of the deal.

Separately, the report showed Mr. Trump earned “over $5 million” through CIC Ventures Inc., an unconnected but similarly named company formed in 2021. (“CIC” stands for commander in chief.) That income was described as being for speaking engagements, which most likely included the campaign-style events he held before becoming an official candidate in November.

Trump paid off certain loans, but took out others

Since leaving office, Mr. Trump has paid off six outstanding loans, including ones valued at more than $50 million on Trump Tower in New York and Trump Doral, a golf club outside Miami that has been his family company’s single-biggest revenue-generating property.

He also took out new loans, both from Axos Bank and totaling more than $50 million each, on the Trump Tower and Doral properties.

He also paid off a loan valued at more than $50 million on Trump Old Post Office, the Washington hotel he sold last year. Most of the loans he had received from Deutsche Bank, which once totaled more than $295 million, have now been paid off, leaving only about $45 million still owed to the bank, which was once a major lender to Mr. Trump.

In total, Mr. Trump listed more than $200 million in debts.

Trump saw new income from a deal with a Saudi-based firm

The financial disclosure shows the first payments to Mr. Trump for a new deal backed by a Saudi Arabia-based real estate investment firm to build a new golf and hotel complex in Oman. The payments so far are listed simply as worth more than $5 million.

The project is slated to be built in Muscat, Oman, on a hillside adjacent to the Gulf of Oman, and will include a golf resort, villas and two hotels, a company executive said.

The Trump family is teaming up with Dar Al Arkan, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest real estate companies, for the project. The government of Oman owns the land, meaning Mr. Trump is now essentially in a business deal with the government there.

Melania Trump reports a fresh revenue stream

The former first lady incorporated one company, MKT World LLC, in 2021, using the same address as Trump International Golf Club, according to Florida Department of State records. The company reported earning royalties of between $1 million and $5 million.

While the company’s exact business dealings were unclear, Ms. Trump has found multiple ways to monetize her ties to Mr. Trump since leaving the White House. In January 2022, she put up for auction a digital portrait of herself by a French artist, a print of the portrait and a white hat she once wore at the White House while meeting the president of France.

She also joined the conservative social-media site Parler, which announced a deal with Ms. Trump whose financial terms were not disclosed. In a statement, she said she would provide the site exclusive content “to inspire others” and promote a series of future online auctions of “collectibles” like the hat she wore at the White House.

Trump revealed fewer details this time

Mr. Trump’s financial disclosures were closely tracked during his first White House run and his presidency. The filings provided notable insights about the effect that holding office had on his wealth. And while much of his income and assets were reported only in wide ranges, Mr. Trump had previously reported specific amounts of income from certain properties.

That all changed in his latest filing.

This time, all of Mr. Trump’s income was reported in broad ranges — which is all that the federal law requires.

For example, Mr. Trump reported that revenue from Mar-a-Lago, his South Florida resort, totaled $24.2 million in 2020, an increase of 13 percent from the previous year. In his latest report, he reported that the resort earned “over $5 million” — the highest disclosure in the filing, which ultimately makes it difficult for voters to get a clear picture of his finances.

The disclosure shows a much more extensive list of individual stock and bond holdings by Mr. Trump, through various investment accounts, totaling several hundred million dollars in additional funds invested, based on the value ranges provided. The filing lists holdings in hundreds of stocks and bonds, including oil and gas, electric utilities, banks, health care, pharmaceutical companies, military contractors and many other sectors.

This reflects, in part, new income Mr. Trump earned through the sale last year of the Trump International Hotel in Washington and the refinancing of mortgages on two valuable office buildings controlled by Vornado Realty Trust that Mr. Trump owns a stake in, one in Manhattan and the other in San Francisco. When these loans were refinanced, it resulted in a large payout to the Trump family.

Eric Trump, who helps run the family company, said in a statement Friday that the financial disclosure reflected a diversified real estate and media company that is relatively healthy. “We have tremendous cash, maintain incredibly low debt relative to the value of our assets,” he said in a statement.

He did not address the various legal challenges and investigations the family is facing.

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Attorney General Merrick Garland. (photo: Susan Walsh)

Mexico: US Charges 28 Members of Sinaloa Cartel Including El Chapo's Sons
Associated Press
Excerpt: "The US justice department has charged 28 members of Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation." 

Charges filed against cartel leaders, alleged chemical suppliers, lab managers, traffickers and others in fentanyl investigation

The US justice department has charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation.

The attorney general, Merrick Garland, announced the charges on Friday alongside the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) chief, Anne Milgram, and other top federal prosecutors. The charges were filed against cartel leaders, as well alleged chemical suppliers, lab managers, fentanyl traffickers, security leaders, financiers and weapons traffickers.

The indictments announced on Friday charge three of Guzmán’s sons – Ovidio Guzmán López, Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Salazar – who are known as the Chapitos, or little Chapos, and who have earned a reputation as the more violent and aggressive faction of the cartel.

Only Guzmán López is in custody, in Mexico.

The indictments also charge Chinese and Guatemalan citizens accused of supplying precursor chemicals required to make fentanyl. Others charged in the cases include those accused of running drug labs and providing security and weapons for the drug trafficking operation, prosecutors said.

Nearly 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in the US in 2021. The Drug Enforcement Administration says most the fentanyl trafficked in the United States comes from the Sinaloa cartel.

The Sinaloa cartel’s notorious drug lord was convicted in 2019 of running an industrial-scale smuggling operation. At his trial, prosecutors said evidence gathered since the late 1980s showed he and his murderous cartel made billions of dollars by smuggling tons of cocaine, heroin, meth and marijuana into the US.

In outlining the charges, Garland described the violence of the Sinaloa cartel, describing how its members have tortured perceived enemies, including Mexican law enforcement officials. In some cases, cartel members have also fed victims, some still alive, to tigers owned by Guzmán’s sons, Garland said.

Eight of those charged in Friday’s case have been arrested and remain in custody of law enforcement officials outside of the US. The US government is offering rewards for several others charged in the case.

Ovidio Guzmán López, one of Guzmán’s sons, was arrested in January in the Sinaloa capital of Culiacán, by the Mexican army and national guard.

Ovidio Guzmán, nicknamed “the Mouse”, had not been one of El Chapo’s better-known sons until an aborted operation to capture him three years earlier. He was briefly detained in 2019, but authorities released him on the orders of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador after cartel gunmen unleashed a wave of violence.

After Guzmán’s rearrest, the cartel launched a similar wave of retaliatory attacks, shutting down the city’s airport, but failing to prevent authorities from taking him from the city. About 30 people died in the violence.

The US government is currently awaiting the younger Guzmán’s extradition.

Ovidio Guzmán López and his brother Joaquín Guzmán López allegedly helped moved the Sinaloa cartel hard into methamphetamines, producing prodigious quantities in large labs. They were previously indicted in 2018 in Washington on drug trafficking charges.

The other two sons Jesús Alfredo Guzmán Salazar and Iván Archivaldo Guzmán Sálazar, are believed to have been running cartel operations together with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. They were previously also charged in the US in Chicago and San Diego.

Zambada had been rumoured to be in poor health and isolated in the mountains leading the sons to try to assert a stronger role to keep the cartel together.

The DEA said it investigated the case in 10 countries: Australia, Austria, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and the United States.

“Death and destruction are central to their whole operation,” Milgram said of the cartel.

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Protesters march in Paris against pension reform. (photo: Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters)

French Court Approves Macron's Plan to Raise Retirement Age, as Protests Continue
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "France's constitutional court has approved the key elements of President Emmanuel Macron's pension reforms, triggering new nationwide protests against the plan." 

Fresh protests erupt after Constitutional Council approves key provisions of French president’s pension reforms.

France’s constitutional court has approved the key elements of President Emmanuel Macron’s pension reforms, triggering new nationwide protests against the plan.

The nine-member Constitutional Council ruled on Friday in favour of key provisions, including raising the retirement age to 64 from 62, judging the legislation to be in accordance with the law.

Six minor proposals were rejected, including efforts to force large companies to publish data on how many people over 55 they employ, and a separate idea to create a special contract for older workers.

The ruling paves the way for Macron to implement the unpopular changes that have sparked months of protests and strikes.

The decision represents a victory for Macron, but analysts said it has come at a major personal cost for the 45-year-old while causing months of disruption for the country with sometimes-violent protests that have left hundreds injured.

The president’s personal ratings are close to their lowest-ever level, and many voters have been outraged by his decision to defy hostile public opinion and ram the pensions law through the lower house of parliament without a vote.

“Stay the course, that’s my motto,” Macron said on Friday as he inspected restoration efforts at the Notre Dame cathedral, four years after a devastating fire gutted the Gothic masterpiece.

Thousands of protesters gathered outside Paris city hall and booed the court decision. Some then marched through the city centre.

Protests rallying hundreds erupted in other cities, including Marseille and Toulouse and in Lyon where police used tear gas to disperse demonstrators, the AFP news agency reported.

In the western city of Rennes, protesters set fire to the entrance of a police station, while other fires were also started in the city.

“The attacks in Rennes… by thugs determined to fight it out are unacceptable,” tweeted Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin.

Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler, reporting from Paris, said that the court decision was a big win for Macron.

“But there is no doubt that it has come with a price,” she said, reminding that France saw months of massive protests.

“Macron is facing a situation where he needs to try to rebuild trust with the trade unions, some opposition lawmakers and segments of the French society,” Butler added.

Opponents

“All the labour unions are calling on the President of the Republic to show some wisdom, listen and understand what is happening in the country and not to promulgate this law,” the leader of the CGT union Sophie Binet said.

In a joint statement, unions said this was “the only way to soothe the anger in the country.”

“The fight continues and must gather force,” the leader of the hard-left La France Insoumise party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, wrote on Twitter.

Far-right Rassemblement National figurehead Marine Le Pen added that the fate of the reform was “not sealed” despite Friday’s decision.

Last month, a strike by Paris refuse workers left the capital strewn with 10,000 tonnes of uncollected rubbish, while train services, oil refineries and schools have been affected by regular stoppages since January.

Some 380,000 people took to the streets nationwide on Thursday in the latest day of union-led action, according to the interior ministry.

But that was a fraction of the nearly 1.3 million who demonstrated at the height of the protests in March.

In a second decision on Friday, the court rejected a bid from opposition legislators to force a referendum on an alternative pension law that would have kept the retirement age at 62.

France currently lags behind most of its European neighbours, many of which have hiked the retirement age to 65 or above.

‘Sustainable’ model

Opponents of the law have said it is unfair to unskilled workers who started working early in life, while critics also said it undercut the right of workers to a long retirement.

The average life expectancy in France is 82.

Macron has repeatedly called the change “necessary” to avoid annual pension deficits forecast to hit 13.5 billion euros ($14.8bn) by 2030, according to government figures.

“I’m proud of the French social model, and I defend it, but if we want to make it sustainable we have to produce more,” he said on Wednesday during a trip to the Netherlands.

“We have to re-industrialise the country. We have to decrease unemployment and we have to increase the quantity of work being delivered in the country. This pension reform is part of it.”

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Tulsa's Greenwood District in 1921 after a white mob razed the predominately Black community. (photo: bswise/Flickr)

Tulsa Race Massacre Investigators Say They've Sequenced DNA From 6 Possible Victims
Scott Neuman, NPR
Neuman writes: "A team of researchers hoping to identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre said Wednesday they had completed DNA sequencing of six sets of human remains exhumed from the city's Oaklawn Cemetery, where bodies of Black residents killed in the violence are thought to have been buried."

Ateam of researchers hoping to identify victims of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre said Wednesday they had completed DNA sequencing of six sets of human remains exhumed from the city's Oaklawn Cemetery, where bodies of Black residents killed in the violence are thought to have been buried.

Speaking at a news conference in Tulsa, Mayor G.T. Bynum announced what he described as a "major scientific breakthrough."

"We do not believe a match of this type has ever been achieved before in American history," the mayor said.

Bynum said 22 sets of remains had been exhumed from the cemetery so far, but that experts are not yet sure if any of them were massacre victims. However, the DNA results could allow researchers to make a match with possible living relatives.

The 1921 Tulsa massacre left upward of 300 African Americans dead and resulted in the destruction of "Black Wall Street" in the city's prosperous Greenwood enclave. Although the history of the two days of violence that began on May 31, 1921, was long unknown outside the city, in recent years Tulsa has engaged in a reckoning over the events. In 2020, the city began excavating at the Oaklawn Cemetery in hopes of locating and identifying remains of victims.

"There isn't a single genealogical investigation of this magnitude in the United States that has gotten this far, and yet, we are still in the beginning stages of this process," Bynum said. "There is a lot more investigative work that is happening, and with the public's help, we are eager to enter the next phase of this process."

For the six sets of remains that were examined, the research team has identified surnames of interest for potential relatives in Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. If a member of the public sees their surname flagged and has a family history in Tulsa, they are being asked to contact the team at Tulsa1921DNA.org.

Alison Wilde, the genealogy case manager for the 1921 Tulsa Project, says anyone who shares the surnames in question and lives in or has historical ties to the designated areas may be able to help. They can upload their own DNA tests to GEDmatch or FamilyTreeDNA so researchers can examine them for a possible match.

"You may have taken a test at ancestry.com or 23andMe or MyHeritage," she said, referring to popular DNA testing and genealogy websites. "[But] if you want your DNA compared to the unidentified human remains in this project then those tests need to be uploaded or transferred."

Using the DNA information from the public, the team hopes to draw up a list of possible matches.

"How easy or how challenging the identification is going to be depends on the people on that list," Wilde said.

It would be easiest if the team can discover a "direct descendant who will share an obvious and significant amount of DNA." But it's also possible that the list would be "comprised of very, very distant DNA relatives — so distant in time that we may never be able to tie them together," she said.

Danny Hellwig, the director of laboratory development for Intermountain Forensics, the Salt Lake City-based lab that sequenced the DNA, vowed that Intermountain and the rest of the team "will continue to leave no stone unturned in this investigation for truth and justice."

"This is just the beginning of what we hope will be a long and and fulfilled process of investigating these results, using the most cutting-edge DNA technologies available," Hellwig said.

In November, the Tulsa World newspaper reported that a total of 66 burials had been unearthed at the Oaklawn Cemetery, all but four of which were unmarked. It is believed that many victims of the massacre were buried in unmarked graves, but their locations were never recorded.

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A vigilante on the U.S.-Mexico border. (photo: Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters)

Hundreds Turn Out to Denounce Texas Republicans' "Vigilante Death Squads Policy"
Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
Devereaux writes: "Hundreds of Texans converged on the capital this week to oppose a new state-led security force that would enlist civilians to track and capture undocumented people." 

Residents blasted Rep. Matt Schaefer’s controversial bill in a hearing that stretched late into the night.

Hundreds of Texans converged on the capital this week to oppose a new state-led security force that would enlist civilians to track and capture undocumented people.

In a hearing that stretched into the wee hours of the morning Wednesday, the Texas House of Representatives heard testimony from first-generation college students, undocumented activists, parents, and children about the inherent dangers of House Bill 20. The author of the controversial proposal, Republican Rep. Matt Schaefer, meanwhile, was grilled by his Democratic counterparts over his bill’s logical and constitutional implications.

In his most extensive public defense of his bill to date, Schaefer, the founder and chair of the arch-conservative Texas Freedom Caucus, collapsed the issues of fentanyl overdoses and migration, ignoring facts and evidence to argue that migrants are responsible for a wave of death and suffering that exceeds the worst episodes of national trauma in modern American history. Pointing to national overdose statistics, he described “a scale of death far greater than Pearl Harbor, the attacks on 9/11, or the totality of the Vietnam War.”

“So much fentanyl is coming across the border, it’s unreal,” the Texas lawmaker said before proceeding to conflate and misrepresent several issues regarding migration and drugs.

As federal officials, border researchers, and journalists have documented ad nauseam, most fentanyl illegally trafficked into the United States comes through U.S. ports of entry, often in vehicles driven by U.S. citizens; according to U.S. Sentencing Commission data cited in Wednesday’s hearing, 86 percent of defendants convicted of smuggling fentanyl through ports of entry are U.S. citizens.

Migrants, on the other hand, overwhelmingly cross the border between ports of entry, thanks to successive bipartisan policies that have made admission at the ports — including pursuit of asylum claims — all but impossible. Customs officers who work the ports where most of the drugs are crossing are distinct from the Border Patrol agents who work between them, undermining a central argument Schaefer made that Mexican organized crime uses migrants to pull away U.S. officials who would otherwise be intercepting drug flows.

“Many of them are coming here just for a better life and make wonderful neighbors,” Schaefer said of the migrants themselves, but “some of them are criminals — rapists, gang members, MS-13.” To address the threat, Schaefer has proposed the “Border Protection Unit,” a new security force composed of law enforcement personnel and private individuals alike, answering directly to the governor in a mission to “arrest, detain, and deter individuals crossing the border.”

Schaefer’s bill, which Texas Democrats have dubbed the “vigilante death squads policy,” was among a bundle of proposals lawmakers heard Wednesday that would create a parallel, state-led border and immigration enforcement apparatus in Texas.

The bills are part of an explicit GOP effort to provoke a legal fight that would ultimately overturn Arizona v. United States, a 2012 Supreme Court decision that struck down a similar set of policies in Arizona as unconstitutional. Republican thought leaders, both on the border and in Washington, believe that the current conservation composition of the court is inclined to reverse the decision.

Democratic Rep. Rafael Anchía drilled down on whether the intent of Schaefer’s bill was to undo the Supreme Court case.

“The intent of the bill is to assert the authority of the state of Texas under the United States Constitution,” Schaefer told him.

“Is there a reason you’re being cagey and coy and not wanting to answer?” Anchía asked.

“I’ve answered your question,” Schaefer replied.

Rep. Chris Turner, also a Democrat, pressed Schaefer about the fundamentals of his proposal as it related to drug overdoses, asking where the majority of the fentanyl smuggled into the U.S. comes from.

“The southern border,” Schaefer said.

“Where specifically?” Turner asked.

“I think there’s some debate about that, Representative,” Schaefer replied. “I think you’re going to hear some say that most of it comes through the ports of entry.” Others, he added, without specifying who, will say “a lot of it comes through in between the ports of entry, but I think in a way it’s distinction without a difference.”

Turner noted that seizure data from Customs and Border Protection, the federal agency responsible for border security, shows that more than 90 percent of the fentanyl trafficked into the U.S. comes through the ports.

Though he used CBP’s figures concerning the apprehension of people at the border repeatedly throughout his testimony, Schaefer said he did not trust the data. At one point, the Republican lawmaker attempted to turn the tables, pressing Turner to tell him the last time he had visited the border.

“We’re gonna talk about your bill, and I’m gonna get to ask you the questions,” Turner said. “I don’t represent a border community, and last I checked, you don’t represent a border community, so we’re both talking about a region of the state that neither one of us represents, frankly.”

Schaefer’s hometown of Tyler, Texas, is more than 500 miles from the border, closer to Arkansas than Mexico.

“What I’m trying to get to is the data and the facts, and the facts indicate that we know fentanyl is a huge crisis in our country,” Turner said. “We have a lot of different strategies that we can use to deal with that. I don’t think your bill addresses fentanyl at all. That’s that’s my problem with your claims.”

Schaefer’s proposal came at the end of a grueling day of testimony involving multiple bills that would effectively institutionalize Operation Lone Star, a $4 billion program that Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott authorized in 2021. The program has been riddled with scandal — including the deaths of National Guard personnel and systemic civil rights violations that have led to a Justice Department investigation — while making no discernable impact on the illicit movement of drugs or people across the border.

By midday, more than 300 people were registered to testify on Schaefer’s bill, nearly all of them in opposition. Many drove across the state to make their voices heard and did so despite the fact that Schaefer didn’t rise to defend his bill until after 9 p.m.

Across four hours of testimony, one speaker after another blasted the proposal as racist, sloppy, dangerous, and unnecessary.

Undocumented activist María Treviño recalled the “dark history” of a state-backed vigilante groups targeting Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Texas.

“This bill doubles down on these racist and illegal activities by potentially training and employing anti-immigrant hate groups,” Treviño said. “I oppose this pricey, xenophobic, and unconstitutional legislation that undermines the separation of powers of our country and believe that Texas legislators should instead prioritize the health of our residents.”

The youngest of the speakers was 9-year-old Asher Vargas, the son of a firefighter, who took the microphone late in the evening.

With Schaefer sitting behind him in the front row of the hearing room, Vargas told the lawmakers about his shifts volunteering at the local migrant shelter, folding clothes, preparing meals, and, with his dad’s help, arranging travel plans for families new to the U.S.

“I find joy in helping the migrants,” Vargas said. His grandmother came to the U.S. from Mexico in the 1980s, he explained, making his family’s life possible. “Migrants come seeking peace and better lives, just like my abuelita did,” he said. “This bill will make it harder for them, which is not very kind.”

“Do you want to be known as a hateful, unwelcoming state?” Vargas asked. “I know I don’t.”

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Pollution from a factory. (photo: Science Focus)

EPA Proposes Major Air Pollution Reforms to Lower Residents' Cancer Risk Near Industrial Facilities
Lisa Song, Kiah Collier and Maya Miller, ProPublica
Excerpt: "The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a series of major reforms this past week to slash toxic air pollution at chemical plants and facilities that sterilize medical equipment, nearly 18 months after ProPublica reported how an estimated 74 million Americans were exposed to elevated cancer risk from these businesses." 

The EPA has proposed tougher air pollution rules for chemical plants and other industrial facilities after ProPublica found an estimated 74 million Americans near those sites faced an elevated risk of cancer.

The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a series of major reforms this past week to slash toxic air pollution at chemical plants and facilities that sterilize medical equipment, nearly 18 months after ProPublica reported how an estimated 74 million Americans were exposed to elevated cancer risk from these businesses.

The first set of rules place stricter limits on roughly 80 air pollutants, according to EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. The list includes potent cancer-causing chemicals such as ethylene oxide, which is used to sterilize medical equipment, and chloroprene, an ingredient in synthetic rubber. The proposal, which would affect more than 200 manufacturers, requires routine air monitoring around these chemical plants, something local communities have long requested.

Regan announced the first wave of changes last Thursday at a press conference in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. The area falls within an 85-mile stretch along the Mississippi River known as “Cancer Alley” due to its concentration of industrial polluters, many of which are located near communities of color.

“For generations, our most vulnerable communities have unjustly borne the burden of breathing unsafe, polluted air,” Regan said in a statement. “Every child in this country deserves clean air to breathe, and EPA will use every available tool to make that vision a reality.”

The EPA declined to make any agency employees available for an interview.

Environmental experts said the proposal is a huge step forward. The updated rules impose stricter health standards for emissions of chloroprene and ethylene oxide to reduce the risk of cancer residents face when they breathe pollution from chemical plants. The proposal also would require facilities to fix leaks and install devices to limit emissions from smokestacks, storage tanks and other equipment. If the new rules are adopted, the number of residents near these facilities who would be exposed to unacceptable cancer risk ultimately would drop by 96%, the EPA said.

“This is a very big announcement” that targets the largest and most hazardous chemical manufacturers, said Adam Kron, an attorney at Earthjustice. The group sued the EPA years ago to force them to update these rules in a more timely manner.

Beverly Wright, executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, said in a statement that this was “the most significant rule I have seen in my 30 years of experience working in Cancer Alley.”

The American Chemistry Council, an industry trade group, said that it was reviewing the proposed new rules but signaled it was concerned about aspects related to ethylene oxide. “Overly conservative regulations on ethylene oxide could threaten access to products ranging from electric vehicle batteries to sterilized medical equipment,” the group wrote on its website. “We support strong, science-based regulations for our industry. But we are concerned that EPA may be rushing its work on significant rulemaking packages,” it added. “We will be engaging closely throughout the comment and review process.”

In 2021, ProPublica published a unique analysis of cumulative cancer risk from industrial air pollution nationwide. Using emissions data reported by the companies, we found that in some parts of Louisiana’s Cancer Alley, the added lifetime cancer risk from these chemicals was up to 47 times what the EPA considers acceptable. Many residents who live near multiple facilities face unacceptable cancer risks from combined emissions, yet the EPA rarely considers cumulative risk. Out of all the pollutants that the EPA regulates, ProPublica's analysis found, ethylene oxide is the most toxic, contributing to the majority of the excess cancer risk created by industrial air pollution in the United States.

Our work spurred reform, including additional air monitoring, two state cancer studies and the EPA’s rejection of a less stringent health standard for ethylene oxide. Weeks after we published our series, Regan said the agency would conduct a series of unannounced EPA inspections of major polluters. The EPA’s new proposed rules, though, go even further.

The agency’s proposal also requires many facilities to conduct air monitoring and make the resulting data publicly available. On top of limiting emissions of 80 pollutants, chemical plants for the first time would monitor for six chemicals — benzene, ethylene oxide, chloroprene, vinyl chloride, ethylene dichloride and 1,3-butadiene — at the fence line, or perimeter, of their facilities. If annual averages exceeded EPA guidelines, the companies would need to find and repair any leaks that were likely to have caused the excessive emissions.

Scott Throwe, a former EPA air pollution expert who now works as a consultant, said the EPA could have gone further by requiring direct, continuous monitoring of toxic air pollutants at the vents, smokestacks and other outlets where emissions are released.

Fence line monitoring only tells you that something is leaking, he said, and doesn’t help you identify the exact piece of equipment responsible. These facilities are so large that each plant may have thousands of potential leaky spots. “They’re not going to find it in five minutes and slap some Silly Putty on the leak and call it a day,” he said. If the EPA required direct monitoring at the source, he added, it would be much easier to pinpoint the culprit.

Despite the drawbacks, fence line monitoring could give regulators a new, straightforward tool to crack down on polluters. A neoprene manufacturer in LaPlace, Louisiana, has faced years of enforcement action from state and federal agencies, yet continues to emit high levels of chloroprene. The chemical can cause liver or lung cancer. Local emissions are so high that the EPA urged state regulators to evacuate students from the nearby Fifth Ward Elementary School last fall. The students have not been moved.

The plant, owned by Denka Performance Elastomer, already has chloroprene monitors at more than 20 locations along its perimeter. The new EPA proposal would regulate chloroprene concentrations at the fence line for the first time, using 0.3 micrograms per cubic meter as a limit. When annual concentrations exceed that, companies would need to reduce their emissions.

The data around the Denka plant from January 2022 to January 2023 shows that nearly all of the monitors exceeded this new proposed threshold. Monitors close to the school showed levels up to five times the limit. Denka didn’t respond to a request for comment. In February, the U.S. Department of Justice sued the company on behalf of the EPA to compel Denka to cut chloroprene emissions. Denka has denied many of the allegations and in a counterclaim said the EPA’s conclusions about the high cancer risks posed by chloroprene are “dead wrong.”

The new EPA rules don’t just apply to facilities that make chemicals. A second EPA proposal, announced Tuesday, would require 86 facilities across the country that use ethylene oxide for sterilizing medical supplies or fumigating spices to install equipment to reduce emissions of the cancer-causing gas. The EPA estimated the rule would reduce ethylene oxide emissions from the facilities by 80%. Both EPA proposals are open for public comment and could be finalized by next year.

Tuesday’s proposal is based on the latest EPA science on ethylene oxide. In 2016, the agency concluded the chemical was 30 times more carcinogenic to people who continuously inhale it as adults and 50 times more carcinogenic for those who are exposed since birth than the agency previously thought. Industry representatives have described the EPA’s conclusion as extreme and overly protective.

The prior regulations for sterilizing facilities were based on outdated scientific studies. The agency was supposed to review the rule for possible revision in 2014 and 2022, but missed both deadlines. A coalition of environmental groups, including the Laredo, Texas-based Rio Grande International Study Center, sued the EPA in December to speed up the timeline. The lawsuit is still pending. Laredo, a border city of 250,000, has been home to the most toxic commercial sterilizer in the country, according to the 2021 ProPublica analysis.

“Today, residents of Laredo are a step closer to breathing cleaner air,” said Laredo City Council member Vanessa Perez, who co-founded the Clean Air Laredo Coalition in 2021. “It’s the EPA’s mission to ensure our air is safe to breathe. We are relying on the EPA’s ruling to move the country in the right direction for environmental protection and justice.”

Owned by Missouri-based Midwest Sterilization Corporation, the Laredo plant released far more ethylene oxide on average than any plant of its kind in the country during the five-year period covered by ProPublica’s analysis.

In a statement, Midwest Sterilization said the company “sterilizes life-saving medical devices used in everyday medical procedures and surgeries.” The company said it “has been anticipating the proposed EPA rule and working hard to make changes ahead of its release to the public.” It added: “It’s important to note that most of the changes proposed by the EPA, have already been achieved by Midwest, or are currently being implemented.”

Environmental groups celebrated the release of the long-overdue proposal but also said it should be strengthened before it is finalized. They want the EPA to require fence line monitoring of ethylene oxide at sterilizing facilities (like the agency is proposing for chemical plants) and to expand the rule to cover emissions from off-site warehouses that also are a significant source of emissions. They also called for the EPA to phase out the use of ethylene oxide.

Last year, studies published by the Texas Department of State Health Services found that rates of three types of cancer associated with ethylene oxide exposure — breast cancer, all-age acute lymphocytic leukemia and extranodal non-Hodgkin lymphoma — were “significantly greater than expected” in Laredo given the population.

The ProPublica analysis found that the Laredo facility elevates the estimated lifetime cancer risk for nearly half of the city’s residents, including 37,000 children, to a level experts say is not sufficiently protective of public health. Among them is Yaneli Ortiz, who was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia in 2019. She had just turned 13 years old. Ethylene oxide should not be ruled out as a factor in Yaneli’s diagnosis given her proximity to the facility and its history of emissions, environmental health experts said, but it is impossible to definitively say whether exposure to the chemical caused her cancer.

After Yaneli underwent years of treatment that included a harrowing near-death experience, doctors recently told her and her parents that there are no signs of cancer in her body.

Still, Yaneli is dealing with the fallout from the side effects of her treatment, particularly from the havoc that the steroids wreaked on her hips, shoulders and knees. She underwent replacement surgery for her hip and left shoulder. Recently, her right shoulder has been hurting so much that the pain keeps her awake at night. Her mother anticipates that Yaneli will need at least two more surgeries to address the injuries. Nevertheless, she recently attended prom at Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, where her cancer was treated. Now 16 years old, Yaneli spent a good part of the night dancing.

“It’s, like, a little bit of a relief,” Yaneli’s mother, Karla Ortiz, said when she heard the news about the proposed EPA rules. “It’s less risky for everyone else as well, so hopefully they won’t have to go through what we went through or other families went through.”

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