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Strassel: Democrat Klobuchar deflates a [And highlights an Obama legal scam...] Trump 'scandal'
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Leroy N. Soetoro
Jun 13, 2019, 7:05:53 PM6/13/19
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https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/a-democrat-deflates-a-trump-scandal
Democrats have grown expert in these Trump days at creating fake scandals.
So it’s refreshing to read a previously undisclosed email in which
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a presidential aspirant, destroys a leading
narrative even as she highlights her own party’s excesses.
The “scandal” here involves Twin Metals Minnesota, which holds two mineral
leases on government land outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness in the northeastern part of the state. 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.
AMY KLOBUCHAR'S FOX NEWS TOWN HALL: 4 TAKEAWAYS TO KNOW
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. It was an Obama extralegal classic: The opinion ignored
precedent, existing rights and regular procedure. In a midnight kiss to
green activists, the department officially blocked the leases on Dec. 15,
2016.
This highly irregular decision was destined to get a fresh look from the
Trump team. The new president’s appointees at the Interior and
Agricultural departments all came to office determined to restore the law
and regulatory certainty. 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.
Instead, we are in an age where every move by the executive branch is
judged not on the policy merits but on a “corruption” scale. 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!
DEMS' LONG GAME? PELOSI RAISES PROSPECT OF PROSECUTING TRUMP ONCE HE
LEAVES OFFICE
It didn’t matter to critics that the Chilean doesn’t know the Trumps, that
Ivanka Trump and Mr. Kushner have never met their landlord, or that they
pay a market rent of $15,000 a month. Nor did it matter that the decision
was an obvious one for the Trump team to reconsider on the merits, or that
the new opinion was rock-solid and corrected a legal embarrassment.
Democrats and activists have instead spun this as straight-up cronyism.
Green groups routinely slam the decision as a favor to “Ivanka’s
landlord.” Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decried the “shameful
reversal” as proof that “big corporate money and special-interest
influence now rule again.” House Democrats sent letters to Interior and
Agriculture Secretaries David Bernhardt and Sonny Perdue harping on the
landlord question. The goal is to gin up a scandal of the type activists
used to run out other Trump appointees.
Enter Ms. Klobuchar. Or, at least enter an email she wrote to then-
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Dec. 16, 2016, the day after the
leases were blocked. Government sources provided me this missive, in which
a furious Ms. Klobuchar punctures the scandal narrative and skewers her
own party for putting politics ahead of the law.
Ms. Klobuchar bluntly states that the decision not to renew the lease
“just floored me. Trump will reverse this. 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?”
She notes that the company “had had the leases for years,” that the
situation “will now end up in a lawsuit,” and that “trump will reverse the
decision or a court will.” She adds: “I am not for or against this project
but I just wanted a fair process based on science that told us the truth.”
(A Klobuchar staffer says the senator “has serious concerns about this
project being so close to the Boundary Waters and has always wanted a
thorough environmental review,” and “does not believe the Trump
administration will move forward in good faith to protect the
environment.”)
Here is a Democratic lawmaker, steeped in a home-state issue, calling this
what it was: an Obama administration perversion of policy and law, done to
appease green donors. She reminds Mr. Vilsack that Republicans will
reverse the decision, for the obvious reason that this did not go through
a “normal” or “fair” process. The Democrats and activists decrying this
“scandal” also know this, although we don’t have the benefit of their
private correspondence.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Remember this story next time the left hurls another “corruption”
accusation. Hard as it is for many to accept, Trump administration
officials often act on what they believe to be sound policy. No ulterior
motive required.
CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
The Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
approved Uranium One in fall 2010. With a little luck, we'll see
compulsive liar Hillary Clinton in jail before she dies.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.
Democrats have grown expert in these Trump days at creating fake scandals.
So it’s refreshing to read a previously undisclosed email in which
Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a presidential aspirant, destroys a leading
narrative even as she highlights her own party’s excesses.
The “scandal” here involves Twin Metals Minnesota, which holds two mineral
leases on government land outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness in the northeastern part of the state. 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.
AMY KLOBUCHAR'S FOX NEWS TOWN HALL: 4 TAKEAWAYS TO KNOW
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. It was an Obama extralegal classic: The opinion ignored
precedent, existing rights and regular procedure. In a midnight kiss to
green activists, the department officially blocked the leases on Dec. 15,
2016.
This highly irregular decision was destined to get a fresh look from the
Trump team. The new president’s appointees at the Interior and
Agricultural departments all came to office determined to restore the law
and regulatory certainty. 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.
Instead, we are in an age where every move by the executive branch is
judged not on the policy merits but on a “corruption” scale. 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!
DEMS' LONG GAME? PELOSI RAISES PROSPECT OF PROSECUTING TRUMP ONCE HE
LEAVES OFFICE
It didn’t matter to critics that the Chilean doesn’t know the Trumps, that
Ivanka Trump and Mr. Kushner have never met their landlord, or that they
pay a market rent of $15,000 a month. Nor did it matter that the decision
was an obvious one for the Trump team to reconsider on the merits, or that
the new opinion was rock-solid and corrected a legal embarrassment.
Democrats and activists have instead spun this as straight-up cronyism.
Green groups routinely slam the decision as a favor to “Ivanka’s
landlord.” Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton decried the “shameful
reversal” as proof that “big corporate money and special-interest
influence now rule again.” House Democrats sent letters to Interior and
Agriculture Secretaries David Bernhardt and Sonny Perdue harping on the
landlord question. The goal is to gin up a scandal of the type activists
used to run out other Trump appointees.
Enter Ms. Klobuchar. Or, at least enter an email she wrote to then-
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack on Dec. 16, 2016, the day after the
leases were blocked. Government sources provided me this missive, in which
a furious Ms. Klobuchar punctures the scandal narrative and skewers her
own party for putting politics ahead of the law.
Ms. Klobuchar bluntly states that the decision not to renew the lease
“just floored me. Trump will reverse this. 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?”
She notes that the company “had had the leases for years,” that the
situation “will now end up in a lawsuit,” and that “trump will reverse the
decision or a court will.” She adds: “I am not for or against this project
but I just wanted a fair process based on science that told us the truth.”
(A Klobuchar staffer says the senator “has serious concerns about this
project being so close to the Boundary Waters and has always wanted a
thorough environmental review,” and “does not believe the Trump
administration will move forward in good faith to protect the
environment.”)
Here is a Democratic lawmaker, steeped in a home-state issue, calling this
what it was: an Obama administration perversion of policy and law, done to
appease green donors. She reminds Mr. Vilsack that Republicans will
reverse the decision, for the obvious reason that this did not go through
a “normal” or “fair” process. The Democrats and activists decrying this
“scandal” also know this, although we don’t have the benefit of their
private correspondence.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Remember this story next time the left hurls another “corruption”
accusation. Hard as it is for many to accept, Trump administration
officials often act on what they believe to be sound policy. No ulterior
motive required.
CLICK HERE TO KEEP READING IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
The Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)
approved Uranium One in fall 2010. With a little luck, we'll see
compulsive liar Hillary Clinton in jail before she dies.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.
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