Biden's Ecoterror-Linked BLM Director Moves Senior Leadership Back to Washington Swamp

Tracy Stone-Manning, President Joe Biden’s controversial director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), has ordered her department’s senior leadership to move back to Washington, DC, according to an email obtained by the Hill.

Stone-Manning, who came under intense criticism during her confirmation process for her involvement with ecoterrorist groups and her role in the 1989 criminal tree spiking ecoterrorism case, said the agency would move some of its senior leadership back to the Washington, DC, swamp, according to an email obtained by the Hill.

The move would be to “consolidate” most of its directors in the nation’s capital after the agency’s headquarters was moved to Colorado under former President Donald Trump’s Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt.

The email stated that the “director and deputy director of operations have already returned to the district, joining the deputy director for policy and programs,” noting that there will be eight more leadership positions comprised of  “most assistant directors and deputy assistant directors” that will also return, with “30 vacant headquarters senior positions.”

A person with knowledge of the plans told the Hill there would be roughly 100 positions in D.C. Those positions would comprise 11 leaders and 30 vacancies added to the 60 positions already based in D.C. and the 36 positions in the Colorado office.

Interior Department spokesperson Melissa Schwartz confirmed the email’s accuracy to the Hill, saying there will be roughly 100 positions based in D.C., including “60 existing positions and the aforementioned 41 jobs,” along with the 36 Colorado positions.

The email added that the assistant director and deputy assistant director for the national conservation lands and community partnerships would “anchor” the Colorado office.

Stone-Manning reportedly wrote that she can “anticipate” the office publishing positions that “reflect that office’s leadership role in BLM’s outdoor recreation, conservation, clean energy, and scientific missions, as well as outreach and Tribal consultation.” However, the Hill noted that Stone-Manning left questions about some of the positions’ placements unanswered in her email.

“We have not made decisions on the best locations for some of the additional vacant H.Q. positions and are also evaluating other positions that were moved and scattered across the West in 2019 and the best way to fulfill the role of the Western Headquarters,” Stone-Manning wrote.

“I will rely on the Employee Advisory Group we are creating to help inform those decisions, as well as to help represent employees’ perspectives as we implement decisions, including considerations related to remote work and telework,” she added.

Before Stone-Manning was confirmed as Biden’s BLM director, she had a contentious confirmation process in the U.S. Senate, whereby the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was deadlocked, voting 10–10 along party lines, making the full Senate vote to carry out her nomination from the committee to be voted on and considered to be the director of BLM.

In this June 23, 2021, file photo, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee holds a hearing with Ranking Member Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) right, at the Capitol in Washington. A former federal law enforcement officer is alleging that President Joe Biden’s pick to oversee federal lands in western states stonewalled a 1989 investigation into the sabotage of an Idaho timber sale. The allegation against U.S. Bureau of Land Management nominee Tracy Stone-Manning was made in a letter from a retired investigator released Thursday, July 15, 2021, by Sen. Barrasso. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

During her confirmation process, Stone-Manning’s past links to ecoterrorist groups and her involvement in a 1989 criminal tree spiking case when she was a graduate student at the University of Montana in Missoula became a source of controversy. Breitbart News reported Stone-Manning’s role in the case:

In 1989, Stone-Manning mailed a letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of John P. Blount, an individual in her “circle of friends,” crudely warning federal authorities that trees in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest that were scheduled to be cut down had been sabotaged with metal spikes to prevent them from being harvested. Tree spiking, as this form of sabotage is called, is both a crime and, according to the FBI’s definition, an act of ecoterrorism that can be fatal to loggers or millworkers processing the spiked trees.

After the Forest Service received the warning letter, Stone-Manning and six other individuals in Missoula were the target of a 1989 grand jury investigation for which they were subpoenaed and required to submit finger prints and hair samples. However, the 1989 grand jury did not uncover enough evidence to charge Blount or anyone else with the crime. The case was not solved until Blount’s ex-girlfriend reported him to authorities two years later, and in doing so, also named Stone-Manning as the person who mailed the letter for him. In exchange for immunity, Stone-Manning testified in the 1993 trial against Blount, who was convicted for the tree spiking crime and sentenced to 17 months in prison.

Former BLM Acting Director William Perry Pendley references interviews in which Stone-Manning admits she did not come forward about her knowledge of Blount’s 1989 tree spiking until her 1993 testimony. Stone-Manning later filled out a questionnaire for her Senate confirmation hearing with inaccuracies related to the tree spiking case.

The thesis on “environmental advertising” highlighted population control propaganda Stone-Manning created as a means to alleviate perceived stresses to the environment caused by humans. Stone-Manning wrote that her movement “desperately needs to use advertising’s ubiquitous power if it is to capture mainstream America.”

…

Breitbart News reached out to the University of Montana to obtain a copy of Stone-Manning’s thesis and discover why this document, in which the Biden nominee called a human child an “environmental hazard,” was restricted.

The university librarian sent an email back stating, “I am not able to provide you with a copy of this thesis because in June 2020 the author requested that we restrict access to current University of Montana campus members only.”

Despite Stone-Manning’s views, she was confirmed to lead the agency, which manages an estimated 245 million acres of public lands and 700 million acres of mineral lands.

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.

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