Graft, Fracking, Puerto Rican Debt Crisis

Does Supreme Court’s Overturning Former Virginia Gov. McDonnell Graft Conviction Decriminalize Corruption?

Interview with Scott Swenson, vice president for Communications with Common Cause, conducted by Scott Harris

In a unanimous decision handed down on June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the corruption conviction of former Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell. In September 2014, a jury unanimously convicted Gov. McDonnell and his wife Maureen of public corruption, finding that the couple had used the governor’s office to assist Jonnie R. Williams Sr., a wealthy dietary supplement company executive, advance his business interests. In exchange, Williams gave the McDonnells $177,000 in loans and gifts including a Rolex watch, vacations, partial payments for a daughter’s wedding reception and $20,000 in designer clothing and accessories.

The Supreme Court decision to vacate the conviction means that the former Republican governor, who was once mentioned as a possible GOP presidential candidate, will not have to serve a two-year sentence, and his wife will avoid serving her one year and-a-day prison term. In rendering their opinion, the justices stated that instructions to the jury in this case on what constitutes “official acts” was too broad. The high court remanded the case back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to determine if there is sufficient evidence to justify a new trial.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Scott Swenson, vice president for communications with Common Cause. Here, he discusses the overturning of the McDonnell conviction, and the dangerous precedent he believes it sets for making it more difficult to prosecute officeholders who sell political access and influence to the highest bidder. [Rush transcript]
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SCOTT SWENSON: It is very clear this is not politics as usual by any stretch of the imagination. There’s ample evidence that Gov. (Bob) McDonnell took gifts and loans provided by his friend Mr. Williams, accepted vacations, a Rolex watch, $20,000 shopping spree, $15,000 in catering expenses for their daughter’s wedding, tens of thousands of dollars in private loans in exchange for Gov. McDonnell promoting Mr. Williams’ products and using privileges of power that come with the office of governor of any state, in this case, Virginia to host events, to give the state’s official seal of approval to this product and to this business.

In one instance, McDonnell emailed Williams asking about a $50,000 loan, and six minutes later, sent another email to a staffer requesting an update on the scientific research surrounding Williams’ product. So you see a very clear line between the money coming in or the request for the money and the governor’s interest in this case.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Tell our listeners about what the Supreme Court unanimous decision says that throughout the corruption conviction against Bob McDonnell, what was the rationale for the Supreme Court in making this ruling?

SCOTT SWENSON: It’s a little hard to discern. They have been very clear that the quid pro quo corruption in every other case is usually what they cite. This is as clear a case of pay-to-play, quid pro quo corruption as you could find, and yet they managed to weasel out of this. It’s clear we can’t rely on federal laws any longer to protect and preserve our democracy. But we’re not left empty handed. We as organizers and people need to start to work on small donor campaign finance reform and gift campaign finance laws at the local and state level so that we can demand consistency in our jurisprudence law for the court and that we can rid the travesty of pay-to-play politics.

The president is sitting on an executive order that would deal with this directly on a federal level. In Virginia, Gov. McDonnell, other governors in other states have very specific disclosure that rule against pay-to-play politics or shine a light on them, so the prophylactic prevents people from wanting to do, take advantage of the system. Virginia just doesn’t have that in place. And so, the people of Virginia have to get those laws in place, other states, obviously should be doing the same thing, because right now we’ve got a court that’s playing politics, and if you get one decision on one day that looks like it’s going in one direction and the very next day you get this decision, which says “quid quo pro, we don’t see that here,” that is a court that is out of balance and out of touch with where the American people are, and we’ve got to have stricter campaign finance laws to make sure we can correct for that.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What precedent does this Supreme Court case send to the rest of the country? Many critics have said this hands-down going to make it more difficult to prove corruption charges against elected officials who take gifts, who accept remuneration for favors given.

SCOTT SWENSON: Absolutely, there is no doubt about it. Unless and until this ruling is corrected, in terms of the (unintelligible) to the high courts get a different decision from the lower court that can be affirmed, this is sending a signal that pay-to-play politics is alive and well. There are very, very few cases of actual sort of money exchanging hands from one to the other, as we’ve sometimes seen in grainy video shots by undercover cameras or what-not in the ABSCAM trials or other things like that. That sort of corruption, that sort of “Here’s a billion dollars that I’m going to give you in a briefcase now you’ll continue this favor” – that is just is pretty far afield. So what happens in Washington, what happens like in the McDonnell case, is legal. And it’s only different by inches from someone handing over a bag of cash, and say, “Oh, would you do this favor for me, or for my business.” In which case, no votes, it’s still a way of using the official apparatus of the state of Virginia and its scientific and business acumen and authority to lend credence and credibility to this gentleman’s product and help them make lots of money. And that is an exchange of money and goods, or money and services – however you want to frame it – that sure seems like it opens the door now with this particular ruling to more rampant pay-to-play politics in the country. The most important thing for your listeners to know tonight is that all is not lost. People are working very hard, smart, thoughtful lawyers, across this country in think tanks and activists around this country are working very hard to put together reform measures that will ensure democracy remains of, by and for the people and doesn’t get sold out to the highest bidder.

We’re in a very dark moment of our history right now. There is no question about that.

For more information on Common Cause, visit CommonCause.org.

Related Links:
“High Court Decision Entrenches Pay-to-Play Politics,” Common Cause (Press Release), June 27, 2016
“Supreme Court Decision on Mcdonnell Opens Worrying New Horizons for Corruption,” Sunlight Foundation, June 28, 2016
“Is the Supreme Court Clueless About Corruption? Ask Jack Abramoff,” New York Times, July 5, 2016
“McDonnell V. United States,” CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 15–474. Argued April 27, 2016—Decided June 27, 2016
Who Will Fight Big Money at whowillfightbigmoney.org
“CREW Statement on Supreme Court’s McDonnell Decision,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, June 27, 2016
“Supreme Court Overturns Corruption Conviction of Former Va. Governor Mcdonnell,” Washington Post, June 27, 2016
“Robert Mcdonnell Corruption Trial,” Washington Post, January 6, 2015
“Robert F. McDonnell Sentenced to Two Years in Prison,” Washington Post, Jan 6, 2015
“McDonnell Gifts List,” Washington Post, Aug. 6, 2014
“Ex-Va. First Lady Gets a Year and a Day for Corruption,” USA Today, Feb. 20, 2015

Probe Sought Into Government Suppression of Link Between Water Contamination and Fracking
Interview with Joshua Pribanic, executive editor of the Public Herald, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

For the past decade, Pennsylvania has been “ground zero” for fracking, the industrial fossil fuel extraction process that requires a million gallons of water, sand and hundreds of unknown chemicals for each gas well that is drilled. Families living near such wells have been complaining that fracking has contaminated their drinking water, but in most cases they haven’t been able to prove it.

A series of investigations – by ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, Harvard University, and others – all revealed problems with Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection’s lack of enforcement and follow-through on suspected cases of water contamination linked to fracking. Last fall, Public Herald, a non-profit investigative news organization based in Pittsburgh, released a report that found nine different ways the state has kept complaints out of the public record.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Joshua Pribanic, executive editor of the Public Herald, who explains that after a court case was won by another news outlet, he and his partner were able for the first time to get access to 2,300 complaint investigations. The Herald is now calling for a federal investigation of both the Pennsylvania DEP and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which in 2015 issued a report stating that there was no evidence of a serious problem with the state’s drinking water due to fracking. However, the report did not cite any of the thousands of complaints in making its determination. Here, Pribanic discusses this investigation. [Rush transcript]
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JOSHUA PRIBANIC: Initially, what tipped us off in the records was not actually something we were able to find at the department. We had a source who had contacted us about contaminated water. We went out and looked at their case that the department handled and we were able to get the records from the source, because they were delivered to them by the DEP and when we looked through them, we started to see really serious problems with the DEP’s decision making. For instance, this particular person ended up having a clean pre-drill test – they had a very clean baseline, no contaminants in their water supply. And after the post-drill, after the drilling happened – I think it was in 2010 or whatnot – they had spikes in arsenic, they had spikes in methane, they ended up having introduction of radon into their water, so it’s a possible contamination of uranium 226 or 228, and there was some illegal activity that happened from the company, which the company illegally buried a waste pit on the site, and the department just created a new permit for them so they didn’t have to hold the company accountable and issue any fines or violations.

So we had a lot of red flags with this particular case, and when we went to go look at the record for this person in the DEP’s office, not a single part related to the water contamination was inside of the record at the department. So that was extremely disturbing for us, No. 1 that we did not see those records. No. 2, they ended up ruling that with this particular person, that the operator was not responsible for the contamination of their water supply. And that ruling was not based on any kind of scientific decision. That ruling was based on something called the Section 3218 of Chapter 58 of Pennsylvania’s Oil and Gas Act. And that states that the company is presumed responsible when the complaint comes in if the complaint comes in within six months of the drilling being started. However, what that does not mean is that the department automatically can rule a case to be non-impact if a person makes a complaint after six months, and that’s exactly what they told this person – “Oh, we’re sorry, you made your complaint after six months, so we cannot hold the company liable for contamination to your water supply. Case closed.”

So it’s a clear misinterpretation of the Pennsylvania law by the Department of Environmental Protection for one reason or another, and as we started to dig through these cases, that particular pattern, that they had misinterpreted this law and made that decision and dismissed pre-drill tests, happened again and again and again and again, so it wasn’t just this isolated case.

BETWEEN THE LINES: The previous governor, Republican Tom Corbett, was extremely pro-fracking. Joshua Pribanic, have you seen any change in the oversight of fracking since Democrat Tom Wolf came in, whom I’m sure appointed his own head of DEP?

JOSHUA PRIBANIC: Since Wolf took office in 2015, we’ve scanned and reported on scanned records of water contamination complaints during his time in office and we’ve also reported on large plumes of contamination that have happened during his time in office. And to be quite honest with you, we were hopeful that when Wolf took office we’d be able to sit down with the department or sit down with Wolf, explain what we had seen during the Corbett administration and expect some kind of task force to address the issues and get this dealt with, so people could be vindicated, get cases reopened, get new decisions, new determinations made by the state for these cases, and the secretary, John Quigley, who was the secretary of DEP who recently resigned, refused to meet with us to discuss the issue on two different occasions. In fact, our experience with this administration at this point, is it is not only just the same as it was for the Corbett administration, but getting much worse, because they have not reined in, they have not created any accountability for the egregious actions that have been perpetuated by the DEP at this point in their decision making. I can say that we are up to nearly 15 different patterns that we’ve discovered of how DEP covers up cases, and three of those patterns came from the time Gov. Tom Wolf has been in office.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What would like to see happen next as a result of your investigation?

JOSHUA PRIBANIC: We have called for a federal criminal investigation of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the U.S. EPA due to the findings that we discovered in our September 2015 complaint report, where we released nine ways the department covered up water contamination related to drinking water complaints from fracking. And I think that, really, the only path forward here is to begin a congressional hearing, to bring in the inspectors at the department, to bring in the supervisors, to bring in the administrative staff of the DEP and also to bring those same people in from the EPA who handled complaint cases in Pennsylvania and who were responsible for the national study that was released.

publicherald.org.

Related Links:
“Public Herald Calls for Federal Criminal Investigation of Pennsylvania DEP & US EPA,” Public Herald, June 27, 2016
“@EPA Missed Thousands of Water Complaints After Telling Public Fracking is Safe,” Public Herald, Feb. 8, 2016
“Public Herald 30-Month Report Finds DEP Fracking Complaint Investigations Are “Cooked” & Shredded,” Public Herald, Sept. 15, 2015
Invisible Hand Investigations at publicherald.org/invisible-hand
“Dimock’s Shocking $4.24M Win Creates Hope for Pa.’s “Cooked” Water Complaints: Expert Witness Interview,” Public Herald, March 11, 2016
“DEP Manipulates Law On Complaint, Leaves Family Without Water,” Public Herald, March 15, 2014
“Cooked! An Exclusive Whistleblower Report by Public Herald,” Erie Reader, Sept. 16, 2015
“Public Herald Calls For Criminal Investigation Over Water,” Popular Resistance, July 3, 2016
“Marcellus Fracking Linked to Well Water Contamination in Pennsylvania,” Rocky Mountain PBS, July 1, 2016
“New Study Confirms What We Already Know – Fracking Is Bad News: Michael Brune,” Penn Live, June 29, 2016
“How Fracking for Natural Gas Became the Terrible New Norm,” Alternet, June 24, 2016

Flawed Oversight Board Formed to Address Puerto Rico’s Debt Crisis Defended as Only Alternative

Interview with Andrew Hanauer, campaigns director for Jubilee USA Network, conducted by Scott Harris

After months of Congressional inaction on Puerto Rico’s looming debt crisis, President Barack Obama signed into law the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management and Economic Stability Act, known by its acronym, PROMESA, or “Promise” in Spanish. The new oversight board was authorized on June 30th, just before a July 1st deadline for the island’s government to make a $2 billion payment to creditors that Puerto Rico’s Governor Alejandro Garcia Padilla say they cannot pay. The island defaulted on an earlier payment in May. Although Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, because it is not a state, the island is not allowed to restructure its daunting $72 billion debt under Chapter 9 the way bankrupt cities like Detroit have done.

President Obama and supporters of PROMESA maintain that the measure will provide “more stability, better services and greater prosperity over the long term for the people of Puerto Rico.” But many opponents of the PROMESA bill say that Puerto Rico shouldn’t pay its debts to enrich Wall Street profiteers. They point to the fact that $33.5 billion of the $72 billion in debt is actually interest on capital appreciation bonds, representing 785 percent interest on an earlier $4.3 billion loan. Critics also oppose the structure of the oversight board which would not be accountable to the island government and requires that only one of its seven members resides or has a business in Puerto Rico. The board will have control over Puerto Rico’s future budget, laws, financial plans, and regulations.

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Andrew Hanauer, Jubilee USA Network’s campaigns director, who examines the strengths and weaknesses of the PROMESA legislation, and the long term economic challenges facing the people of Puerto Rico

For more information, visit Jubilee USA at jubileeusa.org.
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Related Links:
“Puerto Rico Can’t—And Shouldn’t—Pay Its Debts Just to Enrich Wall Street Profiteers,” In These Times,July 1, 2016
“Here’s How PROMESA Aims to Tackle Puerto Rico’s Debt,” NBC News, June 30, 2016
Hr 5720, An Act to Establish An Oversight Board in Puerto Rico House Committee on Natural Resources, 114TH 2d Congressional Session
“US Congressman Recommends Selling 3,100 Acres of Vieques to “Private Developers”,” War Against All Puerto Ricans, April 17, 2016
“Puerto Rico Control Board: A Dangerous Increase of Colonialism or Vital Protection from Wall St.?” Democracy Now! July 1, 2016
“Puerto Rico Debt Relief Law Stirs Colonial Resentment,” New York Times, June 30, 2016
“WATCH: Sanders blasts “colonial” Puerto Rico bill and Wall Street vulture funds in powerful Senate speech,” Salon, July 1, 2016
“Just in Time for the July 4 Break, Congress Imposes ‘Colonialism at Its Worst’ on Puerto Rico,” The Nation, July 2, 2016
“Congress Must Pass PROMESA to Prevent Crisis in Puerto Rico,” Center for American Progress, May 9, 2016

Massive budget cuts in Brazil have grounded police helicopters and parked police cars as local governments are conserving cash on the eve of the August Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.(“‘Welcome to Hell’: Rio Police Protest Financial Disaster Ahead of Olympics,” The Guardian, June 28, 2016; “Rio de Janeiro Governor Declares State of Financial Emergency Ahead of Olympics,” The Guardian, June 17, 2016)
On July 1st, Vermont became the first state in the nation to require the labeling of genetically modified foods or GMOs. It is the culmination of years of organizing by food activists in the face of resistance from giant food corporations over what is disclosed on a food label. Many critics of GMOs say genetically engineered foods are neither regulated nor safe, and can harm human health in ways that scientists don’t yet fully understand.(“GMO Labels: The Great American Food Fight,” Christian Science Monitor, June 25, 2016; “VT Retailers Say Gmo Label Law Unclear,” Burlington Free Press, July 1, 2016)
Hours after US Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a civil rights investigation into the Chicago Police Dept., Chicago Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo flew to Washington DC to meet with officials at the US Dept. of Justice. The city had recently released a dash cam video of officer Jason Van Dyke killing 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Graphic footage showed the officer firing a hail of bullets at the black teen as he walked away. In the wake of McDonald’s death, the union has faced growing public scrutiny over its alleged role in shielding his killer. Officer van Dyke, who killed McDonald, faced 20 civilian complaints over a decade, including accusations of using excessive force.(“How Union Contracts Shield Police Departments from DOJ Reforms,” In These Times, June 21, 2016)

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