This year, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was forced to question President Joe Biden’s Bureau of Land Management producer.
On Thursday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R- Mo., accused BLM Director Tracy Stone- Holding of lying to Congress about her position with a dramatic economic team that” rose” trees in the Clearwater National Forest near the Montana- Idaho boundary. In the 1980s and 1990s, far-left activists used a technique known as branch rising, which involves inserting metal shafts into trees. When trees are processed for checking, the rod turn into deadly projectiles. Metallic mines planted in trees have caused serious injuries to firefighters who had been hurriedly battling large fires despite their intended intentions to terrify workers in the forest industry.
Stone- Manning claimed in her published testimony, which she submitted to the council as part of her confirmation hearing three years ago, that she had “never been arrested or charged and that I have never been the goal of such an analysis.” Stone- Holding was the subject of an investigation into an Idaho tree-spiking ring in 1989, which led to Stone- Holding receiving an exemption agreement with lawyers in 1993. Given her prior work experience under consideration as an ecoterrorist, Hawley inquired of the BLM producer.
” I do stand by that testimony”, she said,” and was glad to be confirmed to do this work”. In the 1989 trees rising theatre, where activists planted 500 pounds of 8 to 10 inches spikes in the Clearwater National Forest to rally a timber sales, the BLM key went on to portray herself as the hero. After Hawley outlined the risks presented by rose trees to orange- neck lumberjacks, Stone- Holding said the risks were “why I notified the national authorities” of the trees targeted. Hawley responded by reading a letter she had written to the U.S. Forest Service. Stone- Manning had previously testified that the letter was written and sent on behalf of her ex-friend and roommate, John T. Blount, as part of her immunity agreement in the 1990s.
” I’d be more than willing to pay you a dollar for the sale, but you’d have to find me first, which would be your worst nightmare,” Hawley said. P.S. You idiots, go in there anyway, and a lot of people could suffer. Why did you send this”?
She said,” I was aware that people could get hurt,” adding that the recipients of the letter intimidated her. However, Hawkey then made reference to testimony from a case’s lead investigator, who wrote a letter to the Senate committee three years ago disputing Stone-Manning’s heroic claims.
Retired Special Agent Michael Merkley , told lawmakers that” Stone- Manning was not an innocent bystander, nor was she a victim in this case. And she lacked a heroic spirit. Merkley went on to say that she was “extremely difficult to work with” and that she was even” the nastiest of the suspects.” ” She was vulgar, antagonistic and extremely anti- government”, Merkley wrote.
However, Stone-Manning continued to refute Hawley’s inquiries, claiming they were intended to focus attention on” a salacious moment from graduate school where I tried to protect people” and were inconvenient.
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” Why we’re not looking at the last three and a half years now is what I do n’t understand,” she said.
” Here’s why”, Hawley said, “it’s because people are killed in these kinds of incidents. It is an act of terrorism. You were identified as a responsible special agent. You lied to this committee”.
However, Hawley overlooks the fact that many of the trees in the Clearwater National Forest still have spikes, some of which are 150 feet above ground and have probably since rusted, making it harder to locate the rods. Sen. James Risch questioned Vicki Christiansen, the then-Chair of the Forest Service, in 2021, whether the organization had a program to eradicate spikes planted by environmental terrorists.
” The Post Office Sale”, Risch explained, in reference to the timber sale hampered by Stone- Manning’s team of activists, “has trees still standing that have tree spikes in them”.
Christiansen , was unsure if a public service to remove the metal rods exists.
]RELATED: Memories Of Tree Spiking Are Fresh Where Tracy Stone- Manning Engaged In Ecoterrorism ]
Stone- Manning’s contradictory testimony, delivered amid her turbulent confirmation process, became the subject of a complaint by a nonpartisan government watchdog group. The transparency nonprofit Protect the Public’s Trust requested that the Department of the Interior’s inspector general investigate the scandal, including whether agency employees assisted Stone- Manning in preparing her written testimony two weeks after Stone- Manning secured a party-line Senate approval.
