A2 The Boston Globe FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2019
The Nation
WASHINGTON — Former
acting FBI director Andrew
McCabe’s legal team has been
notified that the Justice De-
partment authorized prosecu-
tors to seek an indictment
against him for lying to inves-
tigators, according to two peo-
ple familiar with the matter,
though it remains unclear
whether McCabe will be
charged.
McCabe’s team was notified
of Deputy Attorney General
Jeffrey Rosen’s decision in a
message Wednesday.
McCabe’s team was told
last month that line prosecu-tors had recommended charg-
es, and later, that District of
Columbia US Attorney Jessie
K. Liu had endorsed that deci-
sion. Last month, McCabe’s
team had appealed to Rosen in
what was considered one of
the final efforts to persuade of-
ficials not to move forward
and seek an indictment from a
grand jury. The legal team had
been waiting to hear back.
The notification comes as a
federal grand jury investigat-
ing McCabe was suddenly
recalled this week after a
months-long hiatus.
WASHINGTON POSTEx-FBI director may face indictment
COLLEGE PARK, Md. — A
gay married couple in Mary-
land sued Thursday to chal-
lenge the State Department’s
refusal to recognize the US cit-
izenship of their infant daugh-
ter, who was born in Canada
via a surrogate this year.
The federal lawsuit says a
State Department policy dis-
criminates against same-sex
married couples and unlawful-
ly treats their children as if
they were born out of wedlock.
An attorney for the plain-
tiffs, Roee Kiviti and Adiel Kiv-iti, said their suit is the fourth
such challenge to the policy.
In February, a federal judge
in California ruled that a son
of a gay married couple has
been a US citizen since his
birth. The State Department is
appealing that decision.
Roee and Adiel Kiviti are
naturalized US citizens who
were born in Israel. Their
daughter was born via gesta-
tional surrogacy in Canada in
February using Adiel Kiviti’s
sperm and a donated egg.
ASSOCIATED PRESSDenial of citizenship challenged
CHICAGO — Chicago has
paid private attorneys $
million to handle police or
misconduct cases over the past
15 years, in addition to the
$757 million paid to resolve
the cases through judgments
or settlements, according to a
published report.
The Chicago Tribune re-
ported Thursday that the city
turns to private attorneys —
who earn far more than thecity’s own staff attorneys — far
more than other major cities,
including New York. And
while some former top attor-
neys defend the practice as a
way to bring in attorneys who
have the expertise to handle
the often complicated cases,
the city found several exam-
ples where that expertise did
not translate into court victo-
ries.
ASSOCIATED PRESSChicago’s use of pricey lawyers highlighted A married couple charged
with murder who escaped
from a prison van last month,
prompting a nationwide
hunt, have been captured in
Arizona, authorities said
Thursday.
Susan and Blane Barksdale
were discovered hiding out at
a residence inside the Tonto
National Forest in central Ari-
zona, and were taken into cus-
tody by the US Marshals Ser-
vice and the Navajo County
Sheriff’s Office after more thantwo weeks on the run.
The couple, suspected of
killing a 72-year-old Tucson
man and burning down his
house, were captured after the
marshals placed Blane Barks-
dale on its Top 15 Most Want-
ed list Monday, offering
$35,000 in rewards.
The Barksdales escaped
custody on Aug. 26 while be-
ing extradited more than
2,000 miles from Rochester,
N.Y., back to Arizona.
WASHINGTON POSTFugitive couple caught after escape
Daily Briefing
By Coral Davenport
and Lisa Friedman
NEW YORK TIMES
WASHINGTON — The
Trump administration on
Thursday announced the repeal
of an Obama-era clean water
regulation that had placed lim-
its on polluting chemicals that
could be used near streams,
wetlands, and other bodies of
water.
The rollback of the 2015
measure, known as the Waters
of the United States rule, adds
to a long list of environmental
rules the administration has
worked to weaken or undo in
the past 2½ years. The efforts
have focused on eliminating re-
strictions on fossil fuel pollu-
tion, including coal-fired power
plants, auto tailpipes, and oil
and gas leaks, but have touched
on asbestos and pesticides.
The repeal of the water rule,
expected to take effect within
weeks, has implications far be-
yond the pollution that will
now be allowed to flow freely
into streams and wetlands from
farms, mines, and factories.
The Environmental Protection
Agency aims to establish a
stricter definition of “waters of
the United States” under the
Clean Water Act, a precedent
that could make it difficult for
future administrations to pro-
tect waterways.
Patrick Parenteau, professor
of environmental law at the
University of Vermont, said that
for conservative states and
leaders who hold the view the
Clean Water Act has been a bur-
den for farmers and industry,
“this is an opportunity to really
drive a stake through the heart
of federal water protection.”
Weakening the rule was a
campaign pledge for President
Trump, who characterized it as
federal overreach that im-
pinged on the rights of farmers,
rural landowners, and real es-
tate developers to use their
properties as they see fit.
Trump signed an executive
order in the early days of his ad-
ministration directing federal
agencies to begin the work ofrepealing and replacing it.
“Today’s final rule puts an
end to an egregious power
grab,” Andrew Wheeler, the
EPA administrator, said at a
news conference on the repeal.
He said the rollback would
mean “farmers, property own-
ers, and businesses will spend
less time and money determin-ing whether they need a federal
permit and more time building
infrastructure.”
Agricultural groups praised
the repeal. Zippy Duvall, presi-
dent of the American Farm Bu-
reau Federation, said the water
rule had sparked outrage from
farmers and ranchers and led to
the largest effort to kill a regula-
tion in his group’s history.
“When you take privateproperty rights from a man
who’s worked all his life,” Du-
vall said, “that is very intrusive
to him, and it’s something he
just can’t stand for.”
Environmentalists assailed
the move.
“With many of our cities and
towns living with unsafe drink-
ing water, now is not the timeto cut back on clean water en-
forcement,” said Laura Rubin,
director of Healing Our Waters-
Great Lakes Coalition.
The Obama rule, developed
under 1972 Clean Water Act au-
thority, was designed to limit
pollution in about 60 percent of
the nation’s bodies of water,
protecting sources of drinking
water for about one-third of the
United States. It extended exist-ing authority to limit pollution
in large bodies of water, like the
Chesapeake Bay and Puget
Sound, to smaller bodies that
drain into them, such as tribu-
taries, streams, and wetlands.
Farmers using land near
streams and wetlands were re-
stricted from doing certain
kinds of plowing and from
planting certain crops and
would have been required to
obtain EPA permits to use
chemical pesticides and fertiliz-
ers that could have run off into
those bodies of water.
Those restrictions will now
be lifted.
The EPA and Army Corps of
Engineers, which had worked
together to write the Obama
rule, are expected to issue a
new, looser replacement rule by
year’s end.
It’s expected to retain feder-
al protections for larger bodies
of water, the rivers that drain
into them, and wetlands that
are directly adjacent to those
bodies of water.
But it will quite likely strip
away protections for so-called
ephemeral streams, in which
water runs only during or afterrainfalls, and for wetlands that
are not adjacent to major bod-
ies of water or connected to
such bodies of water by a sur-
face channel of water.
That would be a victory for
the farmers and rural landown-
ers who had lobbied the Trump
administration aggressively to
make the changes.
Lawyers said that the inter-
im period between the comple-
tion of the legal repeal of the
Obama rule and the implemen-
tation of the new Trump regula-
tin this year could be one of reg-
ulatory chaos for farmers and
landowners, however.
“The Obama clean water
rulehadveryclearlinesdefin-
ing which waters are protected
by the Clean Water Act, versus
which waters are not, while re-
pealing the rule means replac-
ing those lines with case-by-
case calls,” said Blan Holman,
an expert on water regulation
with the Southern Environ-
mental Law Center.
“This will be very unpredict-
able,” Holman said. “They are
imposing a chaotic case-by-case
program to replace clear,
bright-line rules.”KeyObama-eracleanwaterruletobevoided
Trumpdelivers
oncampaignvow
forlandowners
By Rachel Siegel
WASHINGTON POST
The chief executives of 145
US companies pressed Senate
leaders to expand background
checks to all firearms sales and
implement stronger ‘‘red flag’’
laws, marking the latest push
by corporate America to pres-
sure Congress to take mean-
ingful action on gun violence.
Signatories to a letter sent
Thursday include the heads of
major retailers, tech firms, and
financial institutions, includ-
ing Levi Strauss, Twitter, Uber,
Dick’s Sporting Goods, Yelp,
Bain Capital, and Reddit. The
letter pointed to mass shoot-
ings in recent weeks — includ-
ing those in El Paso, Dayton,
Ohio, and Gilroy, Calif. — but
also called out a broader epi-
demic of gun violence that kills
100 Americans each day and
wounds hundreds more.
‘‘As leaders of some of
America’s most respected com-
panies and those with signifi-
cant business interests in the
United States, we are writing
to you because we have a re-
sponsibility and obligation to
stand up for the safety of our
employees, customers, and all
Americans in the communities
we serve across the country,’’
the executives wrote.
‘‘Doing nothing about
America’s gun violence crisis is
simply unacceptable and it is
time to stand with the Ameri-
can public on gun safety,’’ they
continued.
Corporate America has in-
creasingly weighed in on — or
been forced to reckon with —
pressing social and political is-
sues facing the country and
the world, from immigration
to abortion. On gun reform,
companies from retailers to
banks have considered wheth-
er to overhaul their own poli-
cies or distance themselves
from the vast firearm industry
— or not. Gun sellers have
come under acute pressure to
limit the sales of firearms, es-
pecially since 24 people were
killed at two separate shoot-
ings in Walmart stores last
month.
A recent Washington Post-
ABC News poll found that
Americans across party and
demographic lines over-
whelmingly support expanded
background checks for gun
buyers and allowing law en-
forcement to temporarily seize
weapons from troubled indi-
viduals. The poll found that 86
percent of Americans support
implementing red flag provi-
sions allowing guns to be tak-
en from people judged to be a
danger to themselves or oth-
ers. And 89 percent support
expanding federal background
checks to cover private sales
and gun-show transactions.
Specifically, Thursday’s let-
ter urged the Senate to pass a
bill requiring background
checks on all gun sales plus a
strong red flag law that would
allow courts to issue lifesaving
extreme risk protection orders.
The House has passed gun-
control bills, but they have
stalled in the Senate.
Since Congress established
the background check system
25 years ago, background
checks have blocked more
than 3.5 million gun sales to
prohibited purchasers like
convicted felons and domestic
abusers, the letter states.
But in the subsequent de-
cades, the background check
law has not been updated to
reflect how guns are bought
and sold today. The company
executives wrote that the Sen-
ate should follow actions taken
by the House to pass biparti-
san legislation to update the
background checks law, ‘‘help-
ing to keep guns out of the
hands of people who shouldn’t
have them.’’
The leaders also wrote that
expanding red flag laws would
enable families and law en-
forcement nationwide to inter-
vene when someone is at seri-
ous risk of hurting themselves
or others.
Walmart, the largest em-
ployer in the country, did not
sign Thursday’s letter. But last
week, the company wrote a
separate letter to Congress
urging for a debate over reau-
thorizing an assault weapons
ban. Walmart also announced
it would stop selling ammuni-
tion for military-style weapons
and no longer allow customers
to openly carry firearms in
stores. Other retailers along
changed their open-carry poli-
cies, including Kroger, CVS,
and Walgreens.
And on Wednesday, grocery
chain Publix joined the grow-
ing number of retailers asking
customers not to openly carry
firearms in its stores, even if
state laws allow it.
The policies don’t amount
to outright prohibitions, in
particular because stores gen-
erally haven’t said how their
workers should deal with cus-
tomers who don’t voluntarily
follow the rules.Material from the Associated
Press was used in this report.‘Withmanyofourcitiesandtowns
livingwithunsafedrinkingwater,
nowisnotthetimetocutback
oncleanwaterenforcement.’
LAURA RUBIN, Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition145 CEOs implore
Senate for stricter
gun legislation
Callforredflag
laws,background
checksonallsales
PHOTOS BY GERALD HERBERT/ASSOCIATED PRESSWorld War II veteran Lawrence Brooks
celebrated his 110th birthday on Thursday
at the National World War II Museum in
New Orleans. Brooks served in the
predominantly African-American 91st
Engineer Battalion during the war, and was
a servant to three white officers. At left, he
posed with a picture of himself taken in- Above, the Victory Belles held his
hands as they sang “Happy Birthday.”
LIVING HISTORY