Going after Klobuchar?
A hit piece in the WSJ, of course.
I admit that I have never followed the Twin Metals debate and have no idea of the authenticity of any of the claims. From the story:
The Interior Department had renewed the leases continuously for decades. But when Twin Metals got serious about a mine, the Obama administration jumped into bed with green activists who ardently opposed it. In 2014, Interior delayed the renewals, calling for more study. In early 2016, the department’s solicitor issued a howler of a legal opinion, granting the government new authority to deny Twin Metals automatic lease renewals.
(snip)
In December 2017, the new Interior principal deputy solicitor found the prior opinion fatally flawed and moved to renew Twin Metals’ leases. The company moved on to an arduous environmental review, and it could still be blocked by the feds or the state. Beyond some furious greens, that should have been the end of the matter... Early in 2017, stories started popping up about how Twin Metals was controlled by the family of a Chilean billionaire. And that billionaire also owns a house in Washington, which he rents out to . . . Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Scandal! Payoff! Sleaze!
(snip)
Klobuchar, in an email she wrote to then-Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Dec. 16, 2016 (and provided to the WSJ), the day after the leases were blocked...Ms. Klobuchar bluntly states that the decision not to renew the lease “just floored me. When you guys leave and are out talking about a job message for rural America, I will be left with the mess and dealing with the actual jobs. But you guys sure got a good story in the New York Times.” She’s the one who has to run for re-election in a state that still values its mining industry.
She lectures Mr. Vilsack that this “should have been handled through the normal process. It wasn’t.” She notes that she’d asked written questions in July but got no response. She brutally observes that the failure to do this right is “most likely . . . why we have the trump administration to begin with.” She also snaps: “Who cares about answering some pesky questions from a woman senator from the Midwest when you guys and the White House and the activists have all the politics down, right?”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-democrat-deflates-a-trump-scandal-11559862259 (paid subscription)
=====
Actually, as I am reading this, I admire her concerns for her constituents, regardless of who is in power. But as I say, I have not followed the debate.. The point of the story is that Klobuchar "deflated" a "Trump scandal."
= new reply since forum marked as read
