WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) - Documents obtained by a federal watchdog group show that the Department of Interior (DOI)'s communications team may have knowingly assisted an appointee in making false statements after a Senate confirmation hearing.
“What we were looking at in our Freedom of Information Act request was what had been the conversations that had happened within the department during those times,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public's Trust.
The Senate confirmed Tracy Stone-Manning last year as director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) despite questions by Republicans that she was involved in a tree spiking incident 30 years ago, according to media reports.
“If the allegations are true that Tracy Stone Manning provided false statements to Congress, that could constitute a serious ethics violation on her part,” Chamberlain told Legal Newsline. “If anyone within the department had knowingly assisted her and participated in her making false statements that could constitute ethics violations on their part as well.”
When asked for comment, DOI Communications director Melissa Schwartz told Legal Newsline, "Director Stone-Manning answered all of these questions through detailed questions submitted for the record that have been published as well as her confirmation hearing."
FOIA documents that PPT provided to Legal Newsline include a July 21, 2021 email to the Washington Post’s energy and environmental policy reporter Dino Grandoni asking Schwartz about Stone-Manning’s written answers to the Senate being seemingly in contradiction to a former USDA investigator alleging she was an initial target of an investigation.
“The Interior Department stands by Tracy’s statements and written submissions,” Schwartz answered.
Tree spiking, which involves hammering a metal rod, nail, or other material into a tree trunk to interfere with logging, is considered eco-terrorism.
“It appears that the department's focus is on policy more than their complying with their ethics and legal obligations,” Chamberlain said. “To Protect the Public's Trust, the documents suggest the leadership believes that the laws are for the little people and they have better things to do than to comply with the obligations they have to the American public. Things like that are some of the reasons that trust in government is at an all-time low.”
Stone-Manning may also have violated ethics rules in a $100,000 below-market-rate loan she received while working as a Senate staffer, according to a press release.
"As a staffer in the Senate, if someone is given something of value by somebody else, they're supposed to report it to the ethics office in the Senate," Chamberlain added. "She admittedly did not report the loan to the ethics office. She didn't believe she had to and some of the other people believe that the evidence is inconsistent with her story."