A22 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, AUGUST 30 , 2019
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR[email protected]TAKING EXCEPTIONI
N SERVICE to accelerating the sluggish prog-
ress on his border wall — and to the exhilara-
tion he stokes by invoking the wall at his
raucous campaign rallies — President Trump is
happy not just to bend the rules but also to break
them, and not just to ignore the law but also to gut
it. “Take the land” — that is the president’s refrain
when aides confront him with the legal complexi-
ties that might impede his wish to speed the wall’s
construction.
An eye-opening report by The Post’s Nick Miroff
and Josh Dawsey casts a spotlight on the lengths to
which Mr. Trump is willing to go to deliver on his
signature 2016 campaign promise, which — despite
his constant assertions to the contrary — is still
almost exclusively on the drawing board. Specifical-
ly, the president, who sees his deadline in explicitly
political terms — he promises that 500 miles of
fencing will be built by Election Day next year —
scoffs at environmental rules, contracting and
procurement procedures, and property rights.What are the niceties of established law, federal
regulations or eminent domain compared with
Mr. Trump’s wish to satisfy his partisans’ chants of
“Finish the wall!”?
In rushing the project forward, of course, there
are potential pitfalls, among them the risk that
officials in his administration may be legally liable.
To this, Mr. Trump has breezily suggested he would
grant presidential pardons to those who run afoul
of the law — a suggestion subsequently dismissed
by a White House official, who assured The Post it
was a joke. Hilarious.
Whatever his intentions in that regard, word is
out in the administration that Mr. Trump has
approved a carte blanche for cutting corners on
contracts and playing fast and loose with environ-
mental impact assessments. As The Post quoted a
senior o fficial: “They don’t c are how m uch m oney is
spent, whether landowners’ rights are violated,
whether the environment is damaged, the regs or
even prudent business practices.”Never mind that Mr. Trump privately admits a
wall isn’t the most effective way to halt illegal
immigration. Sustaining the cheers at his rallies is
the end that justifies his means. Never mind, either,
that the prospect of humanitarian disaster is no
impediment to Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda:
Even with Hurricane Dorian bearing down this
week on the Florida and Georgia coasts, it was
revealed that the Department of Homeland Security
had plundered more than $150 million from the
Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster
relief fund. That money was shifted to a program
designed to detain and return Central American
migrants to Mexico while they await adjudication of
their asylum claims in the United States.
The president is making progress in his crusade
to steamroll federal agencies into doing his bid-
ding, notwithstanding rules and regulations. The
costs of such an approach are likely to b ecome clear
only later — though perhaps in time for voters to
assess them at the ballot box in 2020.‘Take the land.’ Ignore the law.
A Post report reveals Mr. Trump’s steamrolling of rules and rights to build his border barrier.
The Aug. 26 editorial “A plan that goes nowhere”
claimed that Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) proposed
$16.3 trillion climate plan was made “unnecessarily
expensive” by his exclusion of new nuclear power
construction and his intention to deny existing
nuclear plants license extensions. According to re-
search by the Environmental Working Group, five
states have already spent $15 billion in subsidies to
keep their economically failing nuclear plants open.
In Ohio, a whopping $1.1 billion was lavished on just
two old nuclear plants whose owners had planned to
shutter them. That bill will be paid by consumers.
New nuclear construction has proved to be eco-
nomically unpalatable to most companies and im-
possible without loan guarantees. In Georgia,
$25 billion has already been poured into two new
plants at Vogtle, still unfinished. In South Carolina,two reactors under construction were canceled,
leaving customers with a $9 billion tab and not a
single watt of electricity.
That’s already $49 billion, without considering
constant safety maintenance, the unsolved manage-
ment of radioactive waste and, of course, the incalcu-
lable price of a major accident.
The editorial described Mr. Sanders’s plan for jobs
in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sec-
tors as “cushy gigs” and advocated a “steadily rising
carbon tax.” But we have time for neither sarcasm nor
caution. Mr. Sanders offers a bold plan that recogniz-
es our climate emergency. We can either get behind it
or mortgage our future by doing too little too late.
Linda Pentz Gunter, Takoma Park
The writer is the international specialist at Beyond
Nuclear.Get behind Mr. Sanders’s climate plan
ABCDE
AN INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPER
H
ARDLY A WEEK goes by in which Presi-
dent Trump’s refusal to distance himself
from his private business fails to raise big
questions of self-dealing and corruption.
This week has brought at least two.
The first came when Mr. Trump suggested
Monday that he would host next year’s Group of
Seven summit at the Trump National Doral golf
resort in Miami. Mr. Trump boasted that the
property has “magnificent buildings,” ample park-
ing and proximity to the airport. Here was the
president of the United States using his platform at
a major international conference to advertise a
private resort he owns.
Mr. Trump puzzlingly insisted that he would not
benefit from the arrangement. That is implausible:
Even if the profits stemming from an influx of
foreign visitors were donated, the struggling resort
would still get a financial lifeline t hat would sustain
operations at the property. This is the same ethical
mess facing other Trump properties, such as
Washington’s Trump International Hotel. Even
though profits from foreigners’ hotel stays andparty room rentals are supposed to be donated to
the U.S. treasury, the extra demand undoubtedly
tends to sustain the operating budget and high
prices for these services at the president’s property.
Foreign governments, not to mention domestic
interests seeking to influence the Trump adminis-
tration, clearly see patronizing Trump Internation-
al as a way to ingratiate themselves with Trump-
world.
Then The Post’s Jonathan O’Connell and David
A. Fahrenthold reported that Attorney General
William P. Barr booked the Trump International’s
Presidential Ballroom for a big party to be held
Dec. 8, resulting in more than $30,000 in revenue
for Mr. Trump’s Pennsylvania Avenue site. Mr. Barr’s
booking is for a family holiday party, a private event,
so there is apparently no threat that Justice
Department funds will be funneled into the presi-
dent’s pocket. According to a Justice Department
official, Mr. Barr consulted with department ethics
officials before booking the ballroom and tried to
book rooms at other hotels first.
Even so, it is unsettling that a Cabinet member isin a position to pay a private business owned by the
man who appointed him to his extremely powerful
position. So are questions about whether Mr. Barr
would receive any kind of discount, raising con-
cerns about Justice Department impartiality as it
defends the hotel and other Trump interests in
court. Direct evidence of impropriety is not visible,
but questions such as these are inevitable as long as
Mr. Trump maintains such a close relationship with
his private business.
No discussion of Trump International would be
complete without noting t hat Mr. Trump personally
intervened to halt the relocation of the FBI, whose
downtown headquarters, across the street from the
president’s hotel, is literally crumbling. Redevelop-
ing the site, as was the plan, would likely have
resulted in a new hotel — meaning unwanted
competition for Trump International. By keeping
the FBI where it is, the government is stuck with a
bill of $170 million in annual rent and is required to
house spillover employees in more than 20 sites
around the region. Once again, the only winner is
Mr. Trump.Unsettling interests
Another week, another round of ethics concerns over Mr. Tr ump’s business.
F
OR SEVERAL years, the Russian govern-
ment has tried to wiggle out from under
responsibility for the death of Sergei Mag-
nitsky, a 37-year-old tax law expert who died
in a Moscow prison on Nov. 1 6, 2009. Magnitsky h ad
exposed Russian officials who fraudulently ob-
tained a $230 million tax refund from their
government using pilfered corporate documents.
The Kremlin argument has always been that Mag-
nitsky might have been sick but never asked for
medical help, that he wasn’t beaten up, that his
wounds were self-inflicted and that he died of
natural causes. “Nobody tortured him, he died of a
heart attack,” said President Vladimir Putin in
December 2012. “Do you think that no one ever dies
in American jails, or what? Of course t hey do. And so
what? Must we make a story of each and every
case?”
Yes, we must in the case of Magnitsky. The
European Court of Human Rights has just ruled on
complaints filed by Magnitsky before he died, and
by his widow and his mother about his treatment in
detention. The court’s judgment destroys the Rus-
sian explanations for what happened to Magnitsky
and largely supports the claim that his medical
treatment in prison was inadequate, that he did not
inflict wounds on himself, that he was kept in
overcrowded prisons and that his death was not
properly investigated.
The court declared that “by depriving” Magnitsky
of “important medical care, the domestic authori-
ties unreasonably put his life in danger.” As Mag-
nitsky reported intensifying pain, the prison au-
thorities confirmed that he had “moderately severe”
pancreatitis and needed gall bladder surgery, but
their failure to act in a timely fashion on the surgery
“may well have contributed significantly to the
death of” Magnitsky, the court concluded.
Magnitsky’s odyssey through the Russian prisons
was a nightmare. He was moved 20 times among
various cells from the time he was first detained onNov. 24, 2008, until his death almost 12 months
later. A document signed by prison authorities on
the day he died reports that rubber batons were
used against him. But according to the court, the
Russian authorities who investigated Magnitsky’s
death closed their inquiry without taking into
account the evidence of the truncheon or a head
injury in the death certificate.
Magnitsky’s work in Moscow was for a prominent
Western investor, William Browder, who has cham-
pioned a law in the United States and elsewherenamed for Magnitsky to impose sanctions on
officials accused of gross human rights abuses.
Mr. Putin has bristled at the Magnitsky law, and the
Kremlin has repeatedly tried to push back against it.
The European court’s judgment leaves no doubt
that Magnitsky was a victim of official negligence
that led to his death. Now, the European Union
should adopt a Magnitsky Act, too. It would be a
fitting testament, and a signal to all those who carry
out such affronts to human dignity, that they will be
held to account for their crimes.A measure
of accountability
The European Court of Human
Rights finds Russia at fault for
Sergei Magnitsky’s death in prison.ABCDE
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1301 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20071 (202) 334-6000Regarding the Aug. 25 Metro article “Bowser
continues call for free Circulator”:
Providing the Circulator for free makes no sense.
Subsidizing transportation for low-income people is
a good idea, but not this way. First, the Circulator
doesn’t serve many of those targeted, and second, it
doesn’t make sense to have the Circulator compete
with the city bus system. It should all be one
affordable system. A reliable, comprehensive system
would get more cars off the street and serve
commuters well.
Christine Matthews, WashingtonI was disappointed to read that D.C. Mayor
Muriel E. Bowser (D) is continuing via Twitter to ask
the D.C. Council to appropriate $3.1 million to keep
the Circulator bus free, long after the council
rejected that proposal and passed a budget without
it. This new push is particularly distasteful in light of
the Aug. 22 Metro column from Theresa Vargas, “For
displaced D.C. families, a transportation struggle.”
One mother described a 90-minute one-way trip
with her two boys ages 4 and 5, including two busy
crossings and three buses. Another mother spends
about $400 per month on Uber to get herself to work
and her daughter to school.
Meanwhile, the Circulator serves mostly the
wealthiest sections of the city where tourists choose
to stay and visit. Only one of its routes touches upon
a poorer neighborhood, per the Aug. 25 Metro article
“Bowser continues call for free Circulator.”
Instead of sticking with her ill-conceived initia-
tive, Ms. Bowser should listen to one of the city’s true
heroines, Jamila Larson of the Homeless Children’s
Playtime Project, and divert one or more of the
Circulator buses to bring homeless children to the
Metro stops nearest their hotels, thus simplifying
their commute to school. And if Ms. Bowser doesn’t
do so, the council should take the initiative. The
council may be enjoying vacation, but the homeless
children are back to school.
Marie Cohen, WashingtonThe wrong route for D.C. transit
The Aug. 25 front-page article “Illnesses related
to vaping are on the rise” said, “E-cigarettes were
introduced as a way to help smokers quit by
satisfying their nicotine cravings without lighting
up.” The development and promotion of electronic
cigarettes were and are a cynical and sinister
marketing scheme to get as many people as
possible addicted to guarantee an endless market
for regular cigarettes and e-cigarettes. It does no
service to the public to portray tobacco companies
as well-intentioned organizations self-sacrificially
trying to wean people away from their addictive
and deadly products.
Joseph S. Good, Staunton, Va.E-cigarettes are addiction machines
In her Aug. 25 Sunday Opinion column, “Other
people’s children,” Nancy Gibbs wrote about the
children of the 680 undocumented workers taken
into custody in recent, horrific immigration raids,
and the children’s t raumatic loss of home and family
that arose from their parents’ decision to seek refuge
from unbearable conditions in their home countries.
She wrote, “No decent society would ever argue that
it’s okay to torture children.”
But, to distinguish between these children and
children traumatized by actions of other f ederal, state
and local law enforcement agencies, she wrote, “Yes,
children often suffer when parents commit crimes,
but that is the collateral damage of enforcement.”
Did she have in mind children such as the six
children of Leon Haughton, who holds a green card,
and whose arrest and imprisonment for nearly three
months on a mistaken charge were detailed at the
top of the Aug. 25 Metro article “Jailed for 82 days —
because of honey”? Mr. Haughton’s children lost
their father’s presence and his wages from his two
jobs, the “collateral damage” of law enforcement. Is
it also “collateral damage” i f a child’s mom or dad is
gone for weeks, jailed until trial because the family
couldn’t come up with bail money?
The term “collateral damage” s ounds to me like an
incantation we have used to cleanse ourselves of
complicity in wrongs that we have long allowed to
continue in our democracy. It also sounds like
something we can change.
Marcia Rucker, WashingtonThe ‘collateral damage’ must end
In his Aug. 25 Outlook essay, “Caring about
tomorrow,” Jamil Zaki offered insights from social
research into why some people care more than
others about the biosphere’s future. Apparently, our
inability to empathize with others’ experiences just a
few decades hence contributes to melting ice caps
and the burning Amazon.
Mr. Zaki described studies showing that lessons
enhancing parent-child connections can spark
intergenerational climate concern. But isn’t the
very malleability of our emotions on this issue one
of the drivers of the accelerating disaster? Feelings
have been manipulated for decades by those who
profit from i naction a nd delay, u ntil climate science
itself is rhetorically diminished as a matter of
“belief.”
Instead, consider a shift in focus from emotion to
logic. Whether I feel connected with future individu-
als or species, it is unreasonable for me to act in ways
that would make their lives insufferable. Justice is
ultimately about logic, not sentiment. Geologist
Marcia Bjornerud argues that contemporary soci-
ety’s illogical attention to the short term underlies
much of our environmental abuse. The result, she
says, is “a kleptocracy stealing from the future.”
Empathy for others, awe at our minute place in
the cosmos and other treasured human emotions
offer much to nurture connections between people
and the Earth. But cold logic, backed by evidence,
may be a still more powerful influence on our
interdependent future. One thing reason clearly tells
us about climate action: Hurry.
Julie Dunlap, Columbia
The writer is coeditor of “Coming of Age at the End
of Nature: A Generation Faces Living on a
Changed Planet.”The logic of fighting for the climate
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