Hard core westerners will remember back in the 1980s when radical ecoterrorists hugged trees hard enough to bobby trap them with metal spikes to sabotage timber sales and injure loggers.
Borrow some smelling salts from your liberal friends and brace yourselves, because President Biden has nominated one such eco-warrior to head the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management.
The extent of Tracy Stone-Manning’s involvement and investigation in the massive tree spiking of Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest has prompted Republicans to demand Biden pull the nomination.
She lied about it in documents filed with the U.S. Senate as part of her confirmation process, said U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican and ranking member of the Senate Natural Resources Committee.
Valerie Richardson of The Washington Times reports Stone-Manning ultimately got immunity for testifying against two of her activist friends involved in the jamming of 500 pounds of spikes into the Idaho Forest in 1989.
“This investigator has confirmed what I have been saying. Tracy Stone-Manning collaborated with eco-terrorists who had booby trapped trees with metal spikes. She mailed the threatening letter for them and she was part of the cover up,” Mr. Barrasso said in a Friday statement to The Washington Times. “She did not cooperate with investigators until she was caught.”
“Tracy Stone-Manning lied to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee by claiming the tree spiking was ‘alleged’ and that she was never investigated,” said Mr. Barrasso. “Now, we have confirmation that neither of those things are true. President Biden must withdraw her nomination.”
A retired federal investigator on that case told E&E News that Stone-Manning was a suspect who initially declined to cooperate or identify the spikers, which set the investigation back by several years.
“She absolutely refused to do anything” to advance the investigation, the retired officer said.
Biden has pulled some wild stunts since taking office, but nominating an eco-terrorist to lead the Bureau of Land Management tops the list of absurdities.