The New York Times - USA (2020-10-15)

THE NEW YORK TIMES NATIONALTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 15, 2020 Y A21

WASHINGTON — For years,
President Trump has accused na-
tional security officials in the
Obama administration of wrong-
doing for making routine classi-
fied information requests called
unmaskings, falsely portraying
them as part of a plot to under-
mine him.
“The big story is the ‘unmask-
ing and surveillance’ of people
that took place during the Obama

Administration,” he posted on
Twitter in 2017.
But John Bash, a U.S. attorney
appointed by Attorney General
William P. Barr to vet the issue,
found no irregularities in those
unmasking requests, which re-
vealed that the president’s former
national security adviser Michael
T. Flynn had appeared in intelli-
gence reports, according to two
U.S. officials briefed on the matter.
The Justice Department has
portrayed Mr. Bash’s work as a re-
view, not a criminal investigation.
His findings were given to John H.
Durham, the U.S. attorney in Con-

necticut, who is conducting a

criminal investigation into the

roots of the Russia inquiry, the of-

ficials said.

Mr. Bash, who stepped down

last week as the U.S. attorney in

the Western District of Texas for a

job in the private sector, was in-

clined to recommend changes to

the unmasking process, one offi-

cial said. Mr. Barr replaced him

with Gregg Sofer, a veteran of the

U.S. attorney’s office in the dis-

trict’s Austin division who was

most recently a counselor to Mr.

Barr.

“Without commenting on any

specific investigation, any mat-

ters that John Bash was oversee-

ing will be assumed by Gregg

Sofer,” said Kerri Kupec, a Justice

Department spokeswoman. She

declined to comment on any as-

pect of Mr. Bash’s work. The

Washington Post earlier reported

his conclusions.

The revelation about Mr. Bash’s

findings is a blow to Mr. Trump’s

push to portray the Russia investi-

gation and related matters as an

election issue and the Justice De-

partment’s scrutiny of them as

certain to reveal a “deep state”

plot against him.

Mr. Barr has told associates

that the Durham investigation is

unlikely to yield any revelations

that can be shared with the public

before the election in November;

Mr. Bash’s findings seem to have

knocked down one of the presi-

dent’s key allegations against his

foes.

News that Mr. Bash did not find

serious wrongdoing by any

Obama-era official infuriated Mr.

Trump. “Personally, I think it’s ri-

diculous. It’s ridiculous. It’s a dis-

grace,” he said in an interview

with Newsmax on Wednesday.

“They actually said no indict-

ments before the election,” he add-

ed, in an apparent reference to the

larger Durham investigation.

For the past few days, Mr.

Trump has publicly excoriated

Mr. Barr and accused him of fail-

ing to deliver on charges against

the president’s perceived ene-

mies.

“Unless Bill Barr indicts these

people for crimes, the greatest po-

litical crime in the history of our

country, then we’re going to get lit-

tle satisfaction unless I win,” Mr.

Trump told Fox Business last

week.

He said he had asked the Jus-

tice Department to charge former

President Barack Obama and for-

mer Vice President Joseph R. Bi-

den Jr, Mr. Trump’s Democratic

opponent in the election next

month, extraordinary requests by

a sitting president to wield the

power of federal law enforcement

against political foes. The attor-

ney general said this spring that

neither was likely to even be in-

vestigated.

The president also said he was

determined to find out why Mr.

Durham was not ready to release

a report. “He’s got so much stuff,”

Mr. Trump said.

National security officials rou-

tinely make unmasking requests

as they read and try to understand

intelligence reports and other

classified communications; for

privacy reasons, names of Ameri-

cans in the reports are blacked

out, but officials can ask to see

them to better understand the

documents.

Such requests made by Obama

administration officials during the

presidential transition revealed

conversations involving Mr.

Flynn. For the past year, Mr.

Trump and his allies have placed

increasing pressure on the Justice

Department to address those re-

quests.

In May, Republicans released a

list of names of Obama adminis-

tration officials who had inquired

in late 2016 and early 2017 about

the identity of an American in Na-

tional Security Agency intelli-

gence reports that turned out to

be Mr. Flynn, then Mr. Trump’s in-

coming national security adviser.

They included John O. Brennan,

the C.I.A. director; Samantha

Power, the ambassador to the

United Nations; James R. Clapper

Jr., the director of national intelli-

gence; James B. Comey, the F.B.I.

director; and Douglas E. Lute, the

American ambassador to NATO.

But the list did not say what the

intelligence reports were about,

or whether they included surveil-

lance of foreign officials talking

about Mr. Flynn or of intelligence

targets talking to him.

After the list was released, the

Justice Department said that Mr.

Barr had asked Mr. Bash to re-

view whether the requests were

irregular or improper, and then

give his research to Mr. Durham.

“Unmasking inherently isn’t

wrong, but certainly the fre-

quency, the motivation and the

reasoning behind unmasking can

be problematic,” Ms. Kupec said in

an interview with Sean Hannity of

Fox News when she announced

Mr. Bash's review.

“When you’re looking at un-

masking as part of a broader in-

vestigation — like John Durham’s

investigation — looking specifi-

cally at who was unmasking

whom can add a lot to our under-

standing about motivation and

big-picture events,” Ms. Kupec

said.

This is not the first time that the

Justice Department under the

Trump administration has pushed

politically divisive work to U.S. at-

torneys far from the main depart-

ment in Washington.

Former Attorney General Jeff

Sessions asked John W. Huber, the

United States attorney in Utah, to

examine allegations by Mr. Trump

and his allies about Hillary Clin-

ton — work that Mr. Durham also

absorbed.

And federal prosecutors out-

side of Washington are accepting

information about potential ties

between Democrats and Ukraine

from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the

president’s personal lawyer.

Review Finds No Irregularities in Requests for Classified Information

John Bash was appointed by Attorney General William P. Barr

to look into claims of improper classified information requests.

MARK LAMBIE/THE EL PASO TIMES, VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

By KATIE BENNER

and JULIAN E. BARNES

A report discredits

Trump’s claim of a

‘deep state’ plot

against him.

Chazdon, a longtime biologist

with the University of Connecticut

and one of the study’s authors.

“The world is invested in destruc-

tion.”

The study was requested by the

United Nations Convention on Bi-

ological Diversity, a global treaty

that aims to preserve biodiversity.

One of the authors, David Cooper,

is its deputy executive secretary.

A recent report by the conven-

tion showed that world leaders

had failed to meet their last round

of targets. The United States is the

only state in the world, with the

exception of the Vatican, that has

not signed the treaty.

The study will be used to help

inform global commitments at the

United Nations biodiversity and

climate conventions next year.

But because the new study high-

lights nature’s disregard for na-

tional borders, it presents a diplo-

matic challenge.

“This lays out the much higher

benefits overall if you ignore the

country boundaries and just look

at where these priorities are,” said

Dr. Chazdon. The most strategic

places are distributed very un-

evenly; tropical forests and wet-

lands, for example, hold outsized

potential for carbon storage and

biodiversity protection.

“Do we say, ‘We’re just going to

forego all those benefits and be

provincial about this?’ ” she

asked. “Or are there ways to co-

operate internationally?”

The authors note that the con-

servation of existing wilderness

remains the most important way

to protect biodiversity, and see

their proposed restoration as a

critical addition. Other essential

steps Dr. Strassburg listed: Stop-

ping the use of fossil fuels; reduc-

ing food, energy and plastic

waste; and making sustainable

choices when buying things like

food, cars and clothes.

“Once consumers start chang-

ing their patterns,” he said, “com-

panies react really quickly.”

restored.

Relinquishing 15 percent of

strategic farmlands, for example,

could spare 60 percent of extinc-

tions and sequester about 30 per-

cent of the built up carbon in the

atmosphere. The authors esti-

mate that at the global level, 55

percent of farmland could be re-

turned to nature while maintain-

ing current levels of food produc-

tion by using existing agricultural

land more effectively and sustain-

ably.

“It’s really impressive,” said J.

Leighton Reid, a specialist in eco-

logical restoration at Virginia

Tech who was not involved in the

study. “The authors do a good job

of acknowledging some of the lim-

itations of the work at the same

time as they’re proposing this big

vision.”

The biggest challenges appear

to be political will and finding the

money to pay farmers to restore

so much land to nature. But the

authors point to the hundreds of

billions or trillions of dollars per

year that subsidize fossil fuels and

unsustainable farming practices.

“There’s a lot of money avail-

able for investment,” said Robin

three things at the same time,” Dr.

Strassburg said, “that leads to a

different map.”

A similar and complementary

tool, The Global Safety Net, was

released last month. It identifies

the most strategic 50 percent of

the planet to protect, filtering for

rare species, high biodiversity,

large mammal landscapes, intact

wilderness and climate stabiliza-

tion.

A growing number of cam-

paigns seek to address the world’s

environmental emergency by

conserving or restoring vast

swaths of the planet. The Bonn

Challenge aims to restore 350 mil-

lion hectares by 2030. The Cam-

paign for Nature is pushing lead-

ers to protect 30 percent of the

planet by 2030.

In the latest study, the scientists

found that benefits rise and fall

depending on how much land is

The twin crises of climate

change and biodiversity loss are

intertwined: Storms and wildfires

are worsening while as many as

one million species are at risk of

extinction.

The solutions are not small or

easy, but they exist, scientists say.

A global road map, published

Wednesday in Nature, identifies a

path to soaking up almost half of

the carbon dioxide that has built

up since the Industrial Revolution

and averting more than 70 per-

cent of the predicted animal and

plant extinctions on land. The

key? Returning a strategic 30 per-

cent of the world’s farmlands to

nature.

It could be done, the re-

searchers found, while preserving

an abundant food supply for peo-

ple and while also staying within

the time scale to keep global tem-

peratures from rising past 2 de-

grees Celsius, the upper target of

the Paris Agreement.

“It’s one of the most cost effec-

tive ways of combating climate

change,” said Bernardo B.N.

Strassburg, one of the study’s au-

thors and an environmental scien-

tist with Pontifical Catholic Uni-

versity of Rio de Janeiro and the

International Institute for Sus-

tainability. “And it’s one of the

most important ways of avoiding

global extinctions.”

The researchers used a map

from the European Space Agency

that breaks down the surface of

the planet into a grid of parcels

classified by ecosystem: forests,

wetlands, shrub lands, grasslands

and arid regions. Using an algo-

rithm they developed, the scien-

tists evaluated which swaths, if re-

turned to their natural states,

would yield the highest returns

for mitigating climate change and

biodiversity loss at the lowest

cost.

It was not enough simply to lay

one result on top of the other. “If

you really want to optimize for all

Fires are used to clear trees for farmland in Indonesia. Restoring the land could reduce carbon dioxide emissions, researchers say.

WAHYUDI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

Study Points at Farmland Restoration as a Climate Fix

Researchers hope strategic land restoration will help prevent ani-

mals like the red-fronted brown lemur from going extinct.

BAZ RATNER/REUTERS

Let nature reclaim

strategic areas,

researchers say.

By CATRIN EINHORN

He said that while there has

been a decline in water pollution

cases, the number of pesticide

cases has risen by “several hun-

dred percent” with investigations

of illegal smuggling and “fraudu-

lent COVID-19 remedies,” and

that prosecutors have pursued

“large, high-impact cases involv-

ing gross violations of our envi-

ronmental laws,” including major

cases involving fraud in auto

emissions. He concluded, “Our

prosecutors are as busy in this Ad-

ministration as they were in prior

administrations, and our nation’s

air and water are the cleanest

they have ever been.”

Mr. Uhlmann responded that

“the numbers don’t lie,” and noted

that 10 defendants were pros-

ecuted for pesticide violations in

2017 and 2018, an increase of just

two defendants over 2015 and

2016. If the numbers have grown
      since then, he said, even a several
      hundred percent rise “would not
      offset the far larger decline in
      Clean Water Act and Clean Air Act
      prosecutions, both of which are
      far more significant from an envi-
      ronmental protection standpoint.”
      He also said that the median
      size of fines in general has fallen,
      and the number of felony prosecu-
      tions — a measure of the serious-
      ness of the crimes — has dropped
      steeply. To Mr. Uhlmann, that
      means that “pollution prosecu-
      tions under President Trump have
      fallen dramatically from his pred-
      ecessors, both in terms of quantity
      and quality.” As for the emissions
      cases, he noted, those started un-
      der the Obama administration.
      A spokeswoman for the E.P.A.
      said that the agency “has reinvig-
      orated its criminal enforcement
      program” and “reversed the
      downward trend” in cases. New
      cases, she said, increased “about
      46 percent” between fiscal year
      2017 and 2019, and that the agency
      expects the number of cases
      opened in fiscal year 2020 “to be
      more than double the number
      opened in 2017.”
      Mr. Uhlmann said that citing
      new investigations in 2019 and
      2020 does not change the “devas-
      tatingly low” number of people
      charged in the administration’s
      first two years, especially since “a
      significant number of investiga-
      tions never result in criminal
      charges.”
      A former regional administra-
      tor for the E.P.A., Judith Enck,
      said that Mr. Uhlmann’s paper il-
      lustrates the broader trend for the
      administration, which “acts like
      our bedrock environmental laws
      are simply suggestions. This ap-
      proach will result in more pollu-
      tion and more damage to health,”
      she said, and called the situation
      “unconscionable.”
      Jeffrey R. Holmstead, who
      served as an E.P.A. official during
      the presidency of George W. Bush,
      said he doubted the decline was
      intentional on the part of the ad-
      ministration. “I would suspect it’s
      not based on any effort to go easy
      on criminals, or environmental
      scofflaws,” he said. “I think it’s a
      reflection of the fact that they
      were not prepared to take over the
      reins of government.” He noted
      that critical officials who would
      oversee such prosecutions were
      not in place until the end of 2018.
      “I’m not saying I hold the ad-
      ministration harmless here,” he
      said, but “it’s hard to accomplish
      very much when you’re sort of in a
      holding pattern.”

Prosecutions of environmental
crimes have “plummeted” during
the Trump administration, ac-
cording to a new report.
The first two years of the Trump
administration had a 70 percent
decrease in criminal prosecutions
under the Clean Water Act and a
decrease of more than 50 percent
under the Clean Air Act, the Envi-
ronmental Crimes Project at the
University of Michigan law school
found.
The research examined cases
brought between 2005 and 2018,
and the two-year period starting
in 2017 had “the worst pollution
prosecution numbers in the 14
years covered by our study,” said
David M. Uhlmann the author of
the study. He presented the paper
at the American Bar Association
fall environmental conference; it
will be published in the Michigan
Journal of Environmental and Ad-
ministrative law. Mr. Uhlmann,
the director of the environmental
law and policy program at the Uni-
versity of Michigan law school,
worked for 17 years in the Depart-
ment of Justice, during the presi-
dential administrations of both
Bushes and Bill Clinton, and was
the top prosecutor of environmen-
tal crimes at the Department of
Justice from 2000 to 2007.
Civil prosecutions have also
dropped significantly during the
Trump years, and the administra-
tion has abandoned the long-
standing practice of using settle-
ments of environmental cases to
require polluters to address past
and future pollution issues with
what are known as supplemental
environmental projects.
The drop in prosecutions occurs
within the larger context of Presi-
dent Trump’s hostility toward
government regulation in general
and environmental regulation in
particular. During the 2016 cam-
paign, he promised to reduce the
E.P.A. to “little tidbits.” Since his
election, the administration has
tried to roll back 100 environmen-
tal regulations, though many of
these initiatives have not fared
well in the courts.
The analysis notes that re-
sources for environmental pros-
ecutions have long been under
pressure, which has led to a grad-
ual drop in the number of prosecu-
tions, even during the Obama ad-
ministration. The number of de-
fendants dropped from 191 in 2011
to 106 in 2014.
“Under President Donald J.
Trump the bottom fell out,” Mr.
Uhlmann wrote, “with just 90 de-
fendants prosecuted during 2017,
and 75 defendants prosecuted
during 2018.” In 2018, the adminis-
tration charged only nine defend-
ants under the Clean Water Act.
After gathering the data, he
wrote in the paper, he had not ex-
pected to see such an “alarming”
drop in prosecutions.
Environmental prosecution is a
partnership between the E.P.A.,
which investigates misconduct,
and the Justice Department,
which pursues the civil and crimi-
nal lawsuits. Both agencies dis-
puted Mr. Uhlmann’s findings.
Jeffrey Bossert Clark, who
heads the environment and natu-
ral resources division of the Jus-
tice Department, said through a
spokeswoman that the article
“paints a misleading picture” of
the administration’s approach and
“confuses quantity for quality.”

Analysis Finds Sharp Decline

In Prosecutions for Pollution

By JOHN SCHWARTZ