President Joe Biden has nominated some sketchy individuals to serve in his administration — and his pick to be director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Tracy Stone-Manning, is no exception.
Stone-Manning has been linked to an eco-terrorism incident around 30 years ago, but despite strenuous objections from the GOP, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) moved to hold a full confirmation vote on her nomination Thursday, the Washington Examiner reports.
“Tree-spiking” incident
Biden’s nomination of Stone-Manning cleared the Energy and Natural Resources Committee on a party-line vote, even though Republican members of the committee objected, arguing that Stone-Manning was dishonest with the panel about her involvement in a “tree-spiking” incident and a subsequent criminal investigation in the early 1990s.
Tree-spiking is an act of eco-terrorism that involves embedding nails and spikes and other pieces of metal in trees to prevent logging and milling by sabotaging equipment. It can also cause injury or even death to loggers and mill workers when saw blades hit the embedded metal and explode, sending dangerous fragments and shrapnel everywhere, as Fox News explains.
“At its worst, tree spiking is lethal to loggers, firefighters, mill workers, and land managers, and at its best, causes life-altering injuries,” some 75 GOP lawmakers wrote in a letter opposing Stone-Manning’s nomination, according to Fox. “Those who employ these tactics know exactly what they are doing. Ms. Stone-Manning is no exception.”
Stone-Manning had downplayed the incident and her involvement in it — she wrote a letter warning of the tree-spiking on behalf of the saboteur, a personal friend, according to reports — and had failed to disclose to the committee that she had received immunity from prosecution in order testify against others involved in the eco-terrorist act, the Examiner noted.
“Lied to the Senate”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), ranking member of the Energy panel, said these transgressions disqualified Stone-Manning from the role.
“It is hard to imagine a nominee more unqualified than Tracy Stone-Manning,” he said, according to the Examiner. “Her actions and her lies should cost her this nomination.”
Taking to social media, Barrasso added in a tweet Wednesday:
With mounting Democrat-caused crises in our country, Senate Democrats’ top priority is to confirm an eco-terrorist collaborator who lied to the Senate. Tracy Stone-Manning should never be the director of [the Bureau of Land Management]. Senate Republicans are united against this dangerous nominee.
Even though they play no role in the nomination and confirmation process, House Republican leadership has also been outspoken in opposition to Stone-Manning, according to Fox, evening formally asking President Biden to withdraw her nomination.
Questions remain
As if the collaboration with eco-terrorists weren’t bad enough, The Washington Times reports that questions of corruption have also been raised about Stone-Manning related to her time as a top staffer for Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT).
That situation involves Stone-Manning having received a $100,000 loan with substantially below-market rates in 2008 from a prominent Democratic donor and Montana real estate developer. Unfortunately, it looks like Biden and Senate Democrats simply don’t care.
The post Senate Dems move to confirm ‘eco-terrorist collaborator’ to head Biden’s Bureau of Land Management first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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