The logs were leaked late last month, reportedly by a Ukrainian security researcher, after Conti publicly announced its support for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and threatened to retaliate against any cyber warfare targeted at the Russian-speaking world. The logs span two years and multiple chat services and were released alongside training documentation, hacking tools, and source code.

The Intercept reviewed the most recent month of logs, focusing on those originating from RocketChat, a group-chat system similar to Discord or Slack, that Conti hosted on the anonymity network Tor. The messages are full of typos, slang, and a heavy use of mat — vulgar Russian profanity. We translated these messages using Google Translate and DeepL, and then a native Russian speaker manually corrected them. As with any translations, there are sometimes multiple possible interpretations, so we are making the original Russian available here. All time stamps from chat messages are in Coordinated Universal Time.

Logs of only some chat rooms appear to have been leaked. Most of the recent messages are from the #general channel, a room where the hackers candidly discussed non-ransomware topics like drug use, pornography, cryptocurrency, an obsession with investigative journalist Brian Krebs, and occasionally technical topics. While the #general channel had 160 users — Conti is a very large criminal enterprise — only a handful of these users actually posted messages during the monthlong period.

The conversations quickly turned political on February 21 when Putin announced that Russia recognized the separatist territories Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine as independent nations, and on February 24 when Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The Russian hackers openly repeated Putin’s falsehoods as fact, such as that Ukraine is run by a “neo-Nazi junta” and that its government is seeking nuclear weapons. Members of the chat continually shared news updates that exaggerated Russia’s success so far in the war.

The chat logs also include a heavy dose of misogyny, including discussions of child sexual abuse content and jokes about rape, as well as antisemitism aimed at Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Also on February 21, Conti announced internally to its employees that the leader of the criminal enterprise had gone into hiding. While it’s unclear exactly what happened, the announcement said that “close attention to the company from the outside has led to the fact that the boss apparently decided to lay low.” It added that Conti did not have enough money to pay everyone’s salaries and asked that they take two to three months of vacation. While Conti’s active operations had ceased, the server hosting RocketChat was still up, so the conversations after that were purely about Russia’s war in Ukraine. CyberScoop this week quoted sources saying Conti recovered from the leaks and is operational.

The Conti Ransomware Gang

Conti is the most successful ransomware gang in operation today. As Check Point Research has reported, the gang appears to operate much like a large corporation, with twice-monthly payroll, five-day workweeks, staggered shifts to ensure around-the-clock operation, and even physical offices. According to a 2022 report on cryptocurrency crime from the company Chainalysis, Conti extorted at least $180 million from its hacking victims last year.

Many of the victims have been in the health care sector, including, Ireland’s public care system. In May 2021, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, Conti encrypted data on 85,000 Irish health care computers and demanded a $20 million ransom payment in exchange for the decryptor, according to a report in CPO Magazine. Ireland’s Health Service Executive refused to pay the ransom, but it’s still costing Ireland 100 million euros to recover from the attack. The FBI also warned that Conti ransomware attacks targeted at least 16 health care networks in the United States.

Conti employees appear to be active during work hours in the Moscow time zone and all internal communication is in Russian, though some people involved don’t live in Russia. One frequent poster in the chat rooms, who goes by the username “Patrick,” appears to be a Russian citizen living in Australia. An older member of Conti is a 55-year-old Latvian woman, according to reporting by Krebs. Based on these chat logs, Conti appears to be an independent criminal enterprise without formal ties to the Russian government.

But it appears that Russian intelligence reached out to members of Conti on at least one occasion. After the ContiLeaks were published, Christo Grozev, executive director of the investigative journalism group Bellingcat, tweeted that his organization had been warned that “a global cyber crime group acting on an FSB [Russia’s security agency] order has hacked one of your contributors,” and they were looking for information about Alexey Navalny, the imprisoned  Russian opposition leader. In 2020, FSB agents were implicated in a poisoning attack on Navalny.

Last year, we got an anonymous tip that "a global cyber crime group acting on an FSB order has hacked one of your contributors. The only thing they were interested on, was anything related to your @navalny investigation". We took enormous measures to upgrade our e-security (1/n)

— Christo Grozev (@christogrozev) February 28, 2022

Chat logs in ContiLeaks, from a chat service called Jabber, seem to indicate that Conti was this cybercrime group, acting on an order from the FSB. A user called “Mango” told a user called “Professor” that he had encrypted chat messages from a Bellingcat journalist but didn’t know how to decrypt them. Mango pasted a snippet from a separate chat that he had with a user called “Johnnyboy77,” who told him about targeting a Bellingcat journalist and mentioned “NAVALNI FSB.”

2021-04-09 18:13:13 mango: So, are we really interested in such data?
2021-04-09 18:13:24 mango: I mean, are we patriots or what?)))
2021-04-09 18:13:31 professor: Of course we are patriots
2021-04-09 18:13:49 mango: I understand. if they decipher it there – I will beacon
2021-04-09 18:14:23 mango: and I also wrote there the other day to you about the auction, but as I understand it, you are still busy and did not delve into)
2021-04-09 18:31:25 mango:
[21:21:02] <johnyboy77> in short, there is a person’s mail from bellingcat
[21:21:06] <johnyboy77> who specifically works in the RU and UA direction
[21:21:06] <johnyboy77> say so
[21:21:08] <johnyboy77> and all his passwords are
[21:21:17] <johnyboy77> and she’s still valid
[21:30:56] <mango> well, pull the correspondence, at least screen them
[21:31:05] <mango> need specifics bro what to talk about
[21:31:07] <johnyboy77> now download files
[21:31:12] <johnyboy77> NAVALNI FSB
[21:31:13] <johnyboy77> even this
[21:31:18] <johnyboy77> right now
2021-04-09 18:31:26 mango: :)
2021-04-09 18:35:42 professor: why not just dump the whole thing

The day after Russian troops began their invasion of Ukraine, Conti posted a statement on its website, a site normally used used for publishing data from companies that refuse to pay ransom. Conti announced its “full support of Russian government,” and warned that if anyone attacked Russia, cyber or otherwise, they would use “all possible resources to strike back at the critical infrastructures of an enemy.”

Original statement from Conti

Screenshot by Check Point Research

Hours later, they tempered their statement, but many had already noticed their unequivocal support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Conti’s modified statement

Screenshot by Check Point Research

Repeating Putin’s Conspiratorial Lies

When Russian soldiers invaded Ukraine on February 24, people in Conti’s #general channel began discussing the war. One member of the chat, Patrick, was by far the most swayed by Putin’s lies about Ukraine. Patrick insisted that war was inevitable because Ukraine was attempting to obtain nuclear weapons. This is false, but this conspiracy theory made up a large part of a speech Putin gave on February 21 just prior to the invasion.

2022-02-24 09:53:54 patrick: war was inevitable, ukraine made an application for nuclear weapons
2022-02-24 09:54:37 patrick: in their possession
2022-02-24 09:55:00 weldon: monkeys don’t explain things, they climb trees
2022-02-24 09:55:02 elijah: @patrick well done and done. Still, no one will ever use it. Yes, just to scare
2022-02-24 09:56:38 elijah: Look, missiles from North Korea periodically arrive in the territorial waters of the Russian Federation. But no one cares. And they have nuclear weapons, by the way. But somehow no one was alarmed
2022-02-24 09:56:47 patrick: old man, you’re wrong, there is no doubt about north korea now
2022-02-24 09:58:42 patrick: no one is happy about the war, brothers, but it is high time to put this neo-Nazi gang of Canaris’s foster kids on trial

In his speech, Putin also falsely claimed that Ukraine’s democratic government is a neo-Nazi dictatorship. Throughout the first days of fighting, Patrick repeatedly insisted that Ukraine is run by a “neo-Nazi junta.” It’s not. Ukraine does a have a legitimate Nazi problem (so does the United States and Russia), but Ukranian neo-Nazis are a small minority and don’t hold any positions in government.

Zelenskyy is Jewish. His grandfather, Semyon Ivanovich Zelenskyy, fought the Nazis during World War II. All three of Zelenskyy’s grandfather’s brothers were shot and killed by Nazi soldiers occupying Ukraine.

2022-02-24 10:01:33 patrick: Putin will answer all questions today, I hope that by the evening Kyiv will be ours
2022-02-24 10:02:47 biggie: what’s the point
2022-02-24 10:03:02 elijah: `by the evening kiev will be ours` – and??? What is the profit in this, well, besides boosting the guy’s ego and an additional reason for the quilted jackets [patriots/nationalists] to fap on the king?
2022-02-24 10:03:07 biggie: only people will die and that’s it
2022-02-24 10:05:11 patrick: the neo-Nazi junta will be liquidated and prosecuted, civilians will not suffer

In another message, Patrick says he’s not fighting in the separatist regions of eastern Ukraine because he’s in Australia, donating money to “the victims of the genocide of the neo-Nazi junta.” Putin accused Ukraine of committing genocide against Russian-speaking civilians in Donbas—this also isn’t true.

2022-02-24 11:02:25 kermit: and why are you here and not a volunteer in the DNR or LNR?
2022-02-24 11:03:34 patrick: I’m in australia helping the the victims of the genocide of the neo-Nazi junta with money
2022-02-24 11:03:45 kermit: you’re hiding far away
2022-02-24 11:04:24 kermit: in any such movement you have to back it up with deeds. right now you’re just another spectator and instigator
2022-02-24 11:04:33 kermit: money is bullshit in a matter like this
2022-02-24 11:04:58 patrick: Zelia [Zelensky] is the one hiding, it’s his last day, our people are already in the suburbs of Kiev

Zelenskyy and Antisemitism

Although Putin has justified his invasion by framing it as a war on Nazi ideology, numerous discussions in the chats point toward antisemitic sentiment within Conti. Such bigotry has been a prominent part of an ascendant far-right movement throughout the U.S. and Europe, including in Russia and Ukraine. On February 21, a user named “Weldon” pointed out that Zelenskyy is Jewish. Several others joined in with antisemitic jokes.

2022-02-21 13:03:18 weldon: Zelensky is a jew
2022-02-21 13:03:24 kermit: oh fuck
2022-02-21 13:03:26 kermit: Jews
2022-02-21 13:03:28 kermit: great
2022-02-21 13:03:31 kermit: my favorite
2022-02-21 13:03:39 weldon: that’s right, not Jewish, but a Jew
2022-02-21 13:04:26 kermit: fuck, I wish I was a jew
2022-02-21 13:04:55 kermit: just be born Jewish and you’re considered a member of a secret society and you mess up the Russians’ life
2022-02-21 13:05:46 weldon: come on. A Tatar was born – a Jew cried :joy:
2022-02-21 13:06:58 kermit: a Crimean Tatar?
2022-02-21 13:08:07 gelmut: black Crimean Tatar born in Odessa, who received Russian citizenship :-D
2022-02-21 13:09:11 weldon: obama?
2022-02-21 13:19:39 gelmut: A Jewish boy approaches his parents and says – I want to be Russian. To which the parents reply: – If you want to be Russian, you go to the corner and stand there all day without food. Half a day later, his parents ask: “How do you live as a Russian? And the boy answers: – I’ve only been Russian for two hours, but I already hate you Jews!

After Russia’s invasion was in full swing, the topic of Jews appeared again. This time, Patrick suggested that Jews ruined the Russian empire, and a user named “Biggie” said that it’s necessary to “de-Jewishize” Israel by force. “Pindo” is a slightly pejorative term for an American, and “Pindostan” is slang for the United States.

2022-02-25 09:10:45 patrick: everyone, up to and including the pindostan [America], must answer for the destruction of my homeland – the USSR, so be it
2022-02-25 09:11:53 patrick: Vinnytsia is surrounded
2022-02-25 09:14:19 biggie: that’s how sovok [Soviet Union, or Soviet nationalists] responded to the breakup of the Russian empire
2022-02-25 09:14:41 biggie: All’s fair
2022-02-25 09:15:52 angelo: wait Soviet factories were built by Americans and Europeans with the hands of our comrades. The empire was ruined by Jews with English money
2022-02-25 09:15:59 angelo: I’m getting confused who got what for what and why.
2022-02-25 09:16:38 angelo: we need Jesus, only he will judge and tell the truth, who God is for!
2022-02-25 09:16:55 angelo: @jesus !
2022-02-25 09:17:18 biggie: yeah, that means we have to conduct a military operation in Israel for de-Jewishization

Earlier in the month, the user named “Thomas” joked with the user “Angelo” that he’d be sentenced to eight years in prison for “anti-patriotism” but quickly said he was kidding. Angelo said, “I know you’re kidding. We are brothers!” Thomas made a casual Nazi joke about being Aryan brothers, adding that “the skinhead theme is my favorite.”

2022-02-16 08:43:42 angelo: we are brothers!
2022-02-16 08:43:48 thomas: Slavs?
2022-02-16 08:43:51 thomas: or Aryans?
2022-02-16 08:44:01 thomas: Ooh, the skinhead theme is my favorite.
2022-02-16 08:44:05 thomas: whoever has cleaner blood

Russian Liberal Democratic Party Leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky attends a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with lawmakers of the new convocation of the State Duma in Moscow, Russia on Dec. 10, 2021. Photo: Ramil Sitdikov/Sputnik via AP

Photo: Ramil Sitdikov/Sputnik via AP

“It’s Gonna Be Sad Without” Zhirinovsky

In early February, the 75-year-old ultranationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a demagogic politician and leader of Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, was reportedly hospitalized for Covid-19 and in critical condition.

Zhirinovsky is a far-right authoritarian populist known for decades of controversial views. According to a 1994 article in the New York Times, Zhirinovsky called for “the preservation of the white race” in a 1992 television appearance to the U.S., which he warned was being turned over by the white population to black and Hispanic people. In 2016, Zhirinovsky strongly supported the election of Donald Trump for U.S. president over Hillary Clinton, telling Bloomberg, “Trump and I could impose order on the whole planet. … Everyone would shut up. There wouldn’t be any extremists, no Islamic State, and white Europeans could feel at ease as we’d send all the immigrants home.”

The Conti hackers seem more than just Putin-supporting Russian patriots — they identify with Zhirinovsky’s far-right, authoritarian, racist politics. In the chat room, they discussed Zhirinovsky’s condition, as well as conspiracy theories about why he’s really in the hospital and if he’s even really sick.

2022-02-16 13:59:48 kermit: everything is okay in the kremlin
2022-02-16 14:00:00 thomas: how’s Zhirik [Zhirinovsky] doing?
2022-02-16 14:00:03 thomas: is he alive?
2022-02-16 14:00:07 thomas: It’s gonna be sad without him.
2022-02-16 14:00:09 kermit: I don’t know, he’s sick
2022-02-16 14:00:15 kermit: he’s not in the kremlin
2022-02-16 14:00:32 thomas: there was a video that said he is not being treated for covid, his lovers poisoned him
2022-02-16 14:00:35 thomas: and on the news
2022-02-16 14:00:42 kermit: lol
2022-02-16 14:00:43 thomas: not mistresses but male lovers
2022-02-16 14:00:46 weldon: :joy:
2022-02-16 14:00:52 kermit: yeah that’s a known fact
2022-02-16 14:01:31 weldon: *Petrosyans *fuck with Stepanenkas :rofl:
2022-02-16 14:01:36 kermit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aDxfJ-eCxw
2022-02-16 14:07:11 gelmut: By the way, everything is bullshit about Zhirik. Their party man said that everything is fine with him, it’s just hype and journalist faggots. In fact he is just lying in the hospital just in case and working there, feeling fine. They bring him documents to sign right there.
2022-02-16 14:09:18 kermit: Trust the party members from the LDPR
2022-02-16 14:09:22 kermit: That’s just the way it is.
2022-02-16 14:10:01 kermit: They’ll tell you that Volfovich [Zhirinovsky] is dying out there and people don’t know what to do

Feeling the Sanctions

On February 24, at the very beginning of the West’s sanctions against Russia, members of Conti were clearly already feeling squeezed, including by their inability to buy digital gear from Apple. After urging from Ukraine, Apple had quickly cut off sales of products like iPhones and MacBooks to Russia. The value of Russian’s ruble had plummeted to 85 rubles for each U.S. dollar (by March 7, each dollar cost 150 rubles).

2022-02-24 07:04:43 angelo: I take it now the latest model iPhone and Macbook are the ones you have now and that’s it
2022-02-24 07:05:22 weldon: so it is
2022-02-24 07:10:26 biggie: as long as the dollar is 85
2022-02-24 07:11:09 weldon: screw GDP on the dollar
2022-02-24 07:11:25 biggie: What about the iPhone?
2022-02-24 07:12:07 weldon: Shove your iPhones up your ass
2022-02-24 07:12:58 biggie: what about macbooks

They joked about Russia joining NATO so they could switch from the free-falling ruble to the euro. Angelo said he couldn’t even buy a brand of juice because it’s American.

2022-02-24 07:17:23 biggie: we should join NATO, then the euro would replace the ruble and nothing would drop
2022-02-24 07:17:34 angelo: I even couldn’t buy Dobry Juice now – it’s American
2022-02-24 07:18:31 angelo: you should take Viagra, nothing will drop.
2022-02-24 07:19:20 weldon: @biggie you shouldn’t miss the shitter when you piss
2022-02-24 07:19:44 biggie: :smiley:
2022-02-24 07:43:20 biggie: “In half an hour, a quarter of Russia’s stock market is like a cow lapped it up… MOEX index -28,8%”.
2022-02-24 07:43:41 biggie: we’re broke.
2022-02-24 07:45:42 biggie: on the other hand we could soon be stocked up
2022-02-24 07:46:12 angelo: but
2022-02-24 07:46:15 angelo: but
2022-02-24 07:46:19 angelo: I haven’t fucking figured it out yet
2022-02-24 07:46:48 weldon: close up before they close you down

The Conti members even discussed a rumor that PornHub, the major American pornography site, would block Russian users. This was false; PornHub didn’t actually block Russians from using its service.

2022-02-24 22:02:38 thomas: Some American senators suggest blocking PornHub in Russia in addition to social networks!
2022-02-24 22:02:44 thomas: That’s it, we’re done)
2022-02-24 22:02:49 thomas: They will take away our last joys!

Obsession With Brian Krebs

In late January, during a conversation about drug use, the user “Kermit” said, “We should send our correspondence to Krebs.” Angelo replied, “The worst that can happen.” They’re referring to Krebs, the investigative journalist who covers cybercrime groups like Conti. This is especially interesting because since ContiLeaks was published, Krebs has, in fact, been analyzing the group’s correspondence.

2022-01-28 20:01:08 kermit: we should send our correspondence to krebs
2022-01-28 20:01:10 angelo: the worst that can happen
2022-01-28 20:02:03 angelo: I come back once in the evening,
Stoned on hash.
Life becomes beautiful
And it’s madly good.
2022-01-28 20:02:17 angelo: going….. smoking…
2022-01-28 20:02:26 angelo: he’s freaking out, he’s gonna say the Chelyabinsk delinquents
2022-01-28 20:02:48 stanton: Cannabis is supposed to be good for your head.
2022-01-28 20:03:04 angelo: everything is relative
2022-01-28 20:03:24 angelo: if you’re prone to schizophrenia you might end up in a mental hospital
2022-01-28 20:04:30 kermit: or join the KPRF [Communist Party of the Russian Federation]

It’s clear that members of Conti read Krebs’s work. They frequently mention him when they’re talking about anything particularly inappropriate. For example, on February 2, in a conversation about porn, masturbation and articles about performing oral sex on yourself, Kermit posted, “that’s the kind of correspondence krebs won’t leak :/”.

2022-02-02 20:56:41 elliott: :rofl:
2022-02-02 20:57:01 kermit: that’s the kind of correspondence krebs won’t leak :/
2022-02-02 20:57:08 angelo: he was reading something about giving himself a blowjob

On February 16, Conti members discussed how to remain anonymous using different Jabber clients, chat programs that can be used to connect decentralized chat servers. They discuss Jabber clients called Pidgin, Psi+, and MCabber, how cool and hackery using them looks, and how well their encryption plugins work. They also discuss how their different anonymous Jabber accounts could get linked if they lose internet access and disconnect from multiple accounts at once. Thomas described his technique for mitigating this threat as “Krebs level.”

2022-02-16 08:34:19 thomas: i have each Jabber account on a different client or in a different sandbox
2022-02-16 08:34:22 thomas: and turn them on manually
2022-02-16 08:34:27 thomas: so there could be no timing attacks
2022-02-16 08:34:34 thomas: no autostarts
2022-02-16 08:35:00 thomas: in short, the security is krebs level

Misogyny, Homophobia, Child Sexual Abuse

The messages in this RocketChat channel #general include the sort of misogyny, casual sexism, and crude anatomical references that have historically been endemic among certain groupings of young computer hackers. In one message, Angelo explained that the #general channel was for “pussy and boobs” and the #announcements channel and private messages were for work.

2022-02-08 14:56:47 angelo: you see, in general, pussy and boobs and announcements, in PM work

In one conversation on February 3, Angelo joked with others about raping a girl in her sleep. The replies included “iconic move” and “no, don’t touch them, they’re for meat when the pigeons and bums run out.”

Members of Conti also frequently used homophobic slurs in the chats. Human rights groups have denounced Russian prohibitions, under Putin, of so-called gay propaganda — acts considered to promote homosexuality — saying it contributes to an increasingly homophobic environment where acts of brutality against gay people are common.

On February 25, Patrick posted about how the Safe Internet League, an internet censorship organization in Russia, was going to declare Yuri Dud a foreign agent after a video he published about Ukraine. Dud is a well-known Russian journalist and YouTuber who identifies as Ukrainian. Patrick ended with “Kill the faggots!”

On February 28, Angelo and Kermit discussed child sexual abuse videos (what Kermit openly referred to as “child pornography”) and the ages of girls they liked to watch.

“The Boss” Is Missing

On February 21, the user “Frances,” who had only posted twice before that month strictly about work, posted a long and surprising update in the #general channel.

The “boss” of the Conti ransomware gang apparently disappeared and couldn’t be reached, probably because of “too much attention to the company from outside” and because of internal leaks. Conti didn’t have enough money in emergency reserves to even pay everyone’s salaries. Frances asked everyone to send him up-to-date contact information, take two to three months of vacation from work, and erase their tracks and clean up their accounts used for hacking in the meantime.

It’s unclear why Conti didn’t have enough money to pay salaries. John Shier, a senior security adviser at the security firm Sophos, told CyberScoop that Conti reportedly has a bitcoin wallet with $2 billion in it. And despite the request for employees to take vacation, there have been nearly two dozen news posts with hacked documents from ransomware victims on Conti’s extortion website since February 21.

2022-02-21 13:30:25 frances: @all
Friends!

I sincerely apologize for having to ignore your questions the last few days. About the boss, Silver, salaries, and everything else. I was forced to because I simply had nothing to say to you. I was dragging my feet, screwing around with the salary as best I could, hoping that the boss would show up and give us clarity on our next steps. But there is no boss, and the situation around us is not getting any softer, and pulling the cat by the balls further does not make sense.

We have a difficult situation, too much attention to the company from outside resulted in the fact that the boss has apparently decided to lay low. There have been many leaks, post-New Year’s receptions, and many other circumstances that incline us all to take some time off and wait for the situation to calm down.

The reserve money that was set aside for emergencies and urgent team needs was not even enough to cover the last paycheck. There is no boss, no clarity or certainty about what we will do in the future, no money either. We hope that the boss will appear and the company will continue to work, but in the meantime, on behalf of the company I apologize to all of you and ask for patience. All balances on wages will be paid, the only question is when.

Now I will ask all of you to write to me in person: (ideally on Jabber:))
– Up-to-date backup contact for communication (preferably register a fresh, uncontaminated public Jabber account
– Briefly your job responsibilities, projects, PL [programming language] (for coders). Who did what, literally in a nutshell

In the near future, we, with those team leaders, who stayed in line – will think how to restart all the work processes, where to find money for salary payments and with renewed vigor to run all our working projects. As soon as there is any news about payments, reorganization and getting back to work – I will contact everyone. In the meantime, I have to ask all of you to take 2-3 months off. We will try to get back to work as soon as possible. From you all, please be concerned about your personal safety! Clean up the working systems, change your accounts on the forums, VPNs, if necessary, phones and PCs. Your security is first and foremost your responsibility! To yourself, to your loved ones and to your team too!

Please do not ask about the boss in a private message – I will not say anything new to anyone, because I simply do not know. Once again, I apologize to my friends, I’m not excited about all these events, we will try to fix the situation. Those who do not want to move on with us – we naturally understand. Those who will wait – 2-3 months off, engaged in personal life and enjoy the freedom :)

All working rockets and internal Jabbers will soon be off, further communication – only on the private Jabbers. Peace be with you all!

The post Leaked Chats Show Russian Ransomware Gang Discussing Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine appeared first on The Intercept.

Augusto conta que, certo dia, aproveitou o horário de descanso para dormir no vestiário. Quando acordou, percebeu que outro funcionário, que constantemente o assediava, havia ejaculado em seu braço. Foi a gota d’água para que ele procurasse a orientação de um advogado e entrasse na justiça contra o McDonald’s. Acabou fazendo um acordo com a empresa, que lhe rendeu uma indenização. Mas um termo de confidencialidade o proíbe de tocar no assunto.

O caso de Augusto não é isolado. Em 2021, entidades sindicais apresentaram ao Ministério Público do Trabalho 96 reclamações trabalhistas relacionadas a assédio moral, assédio sexual e racismo contra o McDonald’s. “Todos os trabalhadores que chegam até nós estão emocionalmente desgastados”, me disse a advogada Betina Santos, integrante da União Geral dos Trabalhadores e colaboradora da equipe jurídica da campanha Sem Direitos Não É Legal, que tem atuação global pelos direitos dos trabalhadores do McDonald’s.

O volume de casos apresentados chamou a atenção do Ministério Público.  Em junho de 2021, a procuradora Elisa Maria Brant de Carvalho Malta, da Procuradoria Regional do Trabalho da 2ª Região, em São Paulo, instaurou um inquérito civil para investigar as denúncias. Por se tratar de assédio, o inquérito está sob sigilo. Procurado, o órgão afirmou que não daria entrevistas sobre o caso.

No Brasil, marca é controlada pela Arcos Dorados, maior franquia independente do McDonald’s em todo o mundo. São 1.020 restaurantes, 50 mil funcionários e dois milhões de clientes diariamente.

Foto: Victor Moriyama/Bloomberg via Getty Images

‘Assédio sexual sistêmico’

A ex-funcionária Mariana trabalhou um pouco mais de três anos em uma das lanchonetes da franquia McDonald’s. Ela afirma ter sofrido tantos problemas no trabalho que acabou caindo em depressão. “Eu era muito humilhada pelos gerentes. Um deles me humilhava na frente dos clientes. Ele falava que eu tinha que ter mais atenção, que eu era burra. Eu ficava muito mal”, relembra.

Ela conta que um funcionário a assediava constantemente. “Mesmo quando eu estava trabalhando na cozinha, com as câmeras e tudo, ele tentava me agarrar, me abraçar. Eu tentava barrar ele, mas mesmo assim ele vinha. Ele tentava agarrar várias meninas. Não era só comigo”.

Mariana diz que recorreu diversas vezes à gerente da loja, que “não dava a mínima”. Desamparada e psicologicamente afetada, a trabalhadora resolveu pedir demissão. “Quando eu estava lá, eu tinha crises nervosas, de ansiedade. Eu não conseguia dormir. Ficava a noite toda pensando. Não queria acordar pra ir trabalhar. Sair de lá foi a melhor coisa que aconteceu”.

As acusações de cultura abusiva dentro dos restaurantes do McDonald’s não se resume ao Brasil. Em 2020, sindicatos de vários países denunciaram a empresa por “assédio sexual sistêmico” para a Cooperação e o Desenvolvimento Econômico, a OCDE, na Holanda.

O corpo jurídico do McDonald’s Brasil, entretanto, costuma recorrer a uma mesma estratégia para encerrar rapidamente ações trabalhistas relacionadas a assédio e racismo: fazer acordos como o assinado com Augusto. Um jeito bem mais rápido, barato e discreto de evitar escândalos que manchem a imagem da empresa perante o mercado e seus acionistas.

“A prática é essa. É o silenciamento do trabalhador”, afirma Betina Santos. Os valores pagos aos funcionários que procuram a justiça giram em torno de R$ 3 a R$ 5 mil, revela a advogada. “Esses trabalhadores são pessoas de baixa renda, que acabam aceitando. Uma conclusão que nós temos é que essa prática está na margem de risco. O McDonald’s já conta com essas reclamações trabalhistas. Pensando nisso, ainda é lucrativo perpetuar práticas discriminatórias”.

‘Já acolhi uma trabalhadora que recebeu R$ 69 no fim do mês’.

A advogada relembra alguns acordos com valores baixos. “Em um caso de racismo, em que o gerente usava termos pejorativos para se referir ao cabelo de uma trabalhadora, o valor do acordo foi de R$ 3 mil pelos danos morais. Em outra situação, um trabalhador que sofria humilhações verbais e até físicas, como beliscões para agilizar o atendimento, recebeu menos de R$ 2 mil”.

A campanha Sem Direitos Não É Legal surgiu em 2012 nos EUA e existe desde 2015 no Brasil. Seu objetivo é levar informações para que trabalhadores da rede de lanchonetes não tolerem situações de abuso e discriminação no trabalho. Santos estima que 85% dos funcionários acolhidos pela campanha ganham menos que um salário mínimo. “Vemos nos holerites muitos descontos indevidos. Essa prática de contratar por hora e fazer esses descontos é muito comum. Já acolhi uma trabalhadora que recebeu R$ 69 no fim do mês”.

Ao Intercept, o McDonald’s afirmou que “sem o conhecimento de mais detalhes das denúncias” não é possível “fazer qualquer esclarecimento nessa reportagem e/ou, até mesmo, apuração interna quanto aos fatos descritos”.

Ilustração: Matheus Santa Cruz para o Intercept Brasil

As ‘méquizices’ que não aparecem na TV

Avaliado globalmente em US$ 45,8 bilhões, o McDonald’s está entre as 10 marcas mais valiosas do mundo, segundo o ranking de 2021 da consultoria Interbrand. A lista traz empresas como Amazon, Google, Microsoft e Coca-Cola. No segundo trimestre de 2021, a rede de fast food obteve um lucro líquido de US$ 2,219 bilhões com suas atividades no mundo todo.

No Brasil, a marca é controlada pela Arcos Dorados, maior franquia independente do McDonald’s em todo o mundo. São 1.020 restaurantes, 50 mil funcionários e dois milhões de clientes atendidos diariamente.

O marketing agressivo dos últimos anos transformou o McDonald’s em Méqui, com grafia abrasileirada. E, na campanha mais recente, exibida exaustivamente no horário nobre da televisão brasileira, artistas como Luísa Sonza, Simone e Simaria, Ludmilla e Jorge e Mateus contam suas “méquizices” preferidas. Mas muitas outras “méquizices” não aparecem na TV.

Basta entrar em qualquer unidade do McDonald’s para notar que grande parte dos funcionários é jovem. “Muitas vezes, é o primeiro emprego desses jovens de periferia. Eles não sabem o que [pode] estar errado ali”, aponta Rafael Guerra, coordenador da Sem Direitos Não É Legal no Brasil.

O problema envolve, inclusive, a alimentação dos funcionários. “Eles não têm condições nem de levar comida [para o trabalho], ganham muito pouco. É bem complicado, triste. Tem loja em que você só pode comer o hambúrguer mais barato. Muitas vezes, os trabalhadores comem o hambúrguer requentado, o que sobrou”, diz Guerra.

A advogada Santos menciona que, além da questão dos baixos salários, os funcionários apontam também irregularidades na jornada de trabalho. “Muitos deixam de cumprir o horário de descanso em troca de lanches”.

No Facebook, o grupo Trabalhei no McDonald’s’ reúne mais de 57 mil membros. Lá, é muito comum ver quem atuou na empresa em outras épocas, como os anos 80 ou 90, dizendo que os mesmos problemas já eram enfrentados no passado. A maioria dos posts feitos por funcionários aborda os baixos salários, a carga excessiva de trabalho, o esgotamento mental, a vontade de pedir demissão e, principalmente, traz críticas aos superiores.

Grupo aberto reúne ex-funcionários com histórias em comum: excesso de trabalho, salários baixos e esgotamento.

Gerentes: um problema recorrente

Os trabalhadores do McDonald’s entrevistados pelo Intercept trazem em seus relatos algo em comum: a omissão ou os abusos dos superiores nos restaurantes. No mês passado, nós mostramos, por exemplo, que gerentes chegaram a coagir funcionários com covid-19 a trabalhar. Mas os jovens trabalhadores com quem conversei para esta reportagem apontam um segundo problema em comum: seus corpos, seus tons de pele e suas orientações sexuais.

Fernando entrou no McDonald’s em 2017, logo depois de ser expulso de casa pelos pais ao contar que é gay. Começou, então, a produzir conteúdo para a internet contando curiosidades sobre a rotina de funcionário do McDonald’s. Ele alega que, assim que começou a ganhar popularidade nas redes sociais, passou também a ser perseguido por seus superiores. “Uma gerente falou na minha frente que eu era um bosta como treinador, mas como marketing eu era ótimo. Ela, inclusive, já havia gritado comigo”, conta.

“Em outro momento, um gerente pediu para eu tirar minha aliança do dedo porque só héteros podiam usar aliança. Isso foi a gota d’água para mim e resolvi pedir demissão”. Mesmo assim, Fernando decidiu não processar a empresa.

Paulo também trabalhou em uma unidade do McDonald’s. Ele conta que, logo na primeira semana no emprego, foi humilhado pelo gerente. “Ele estava me ensinando a trocar o óleo da fritadeira. Na primeira vez em que fui trocar, acabei derrubando gordura. Ele me colocou para ajoelhar no chão e limpar aquele monte de gordura com dois panos finos”, relembra. Paulo chegou a pedir se poderia usar o esfregão para facilitar a limpeza. O gerente teria dito que não. No dia, um colega de trabalho teria ficado incomodado com a situação.

Em outra ocasião, uma gerente teria comunicado aos funcionários que uma de suas canetas havia sumido e que ninguém iria embora enquanto ela não encontrasse o objeto. Em dado momento, um colega de trabalho alertou Paulo: a gerente teria ido até a mochila dele procurar a caneta. “Eu era o único negro do plantão. Ela poderia ter ido em outra mochilas, mas foi direto na minha. Acredito que tenha sido racismo”.

Paulo entrou com uma ação contra a empresa, mas ainda não recebeu oferta de acordo.

Questionado, o McDonald’s afirmou que reitera seu “compromisso com a promoção de um ambiente de trabalho inclusivo e respeitoso, onde as pessoas se sintam seguras e tenham liberdade plena de expressão”. “Sobre o questionamento realizado pela reportagem se há ‘casos de assédio moral, sexual e racismo sistêmico dentro das unidades’, negamos veementemente essa prática, assim como não somos coniventes com quaisquer situações isoladas que eventualmente ocorram nos restaurantes e escritórios”, disse a empresa, por meio de sua assessoria de imprensa. Sobre os casos relatados, a empresa informa que “sem o conhecimento de mais detalhes das denúncias não é possível fazer qualquer esclarecimento” – leia aqui a íntegra da resposta.

A Arcos Dourados também afirmou que “respeita a apuração aberta pelo Ministério Público do Trabalho de São Paulo e tem colaborado ativamente, apresentando todas as informações solicitadas” e que tem um canal interno de denúncias com garantia de sigilo e anonimato.

The post ‘Burra’, ‘picolé de piche’, ‘viadinho’: ex-funcionários do McDonald’s relatam cultura de abusos appeared first on The Intercept.

Activists participate in a candlelight vigil on abortion rights in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 13, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, 26 states are “certain or likely to ban abortion,” according to the Guttmacher Institute. In December, the court heard arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, addressing Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act banning abortion after 15 weeks’ pregnancy. The law is a deliberate violation of Roe, the 1973 ruling legalizing abortion. Most observers expect the conservative majority to rule in Mississippi’s favor. In that case abortion law would revert to the states, where in vast red swaths of this nation it has been so slashed and shredded that it’s already practically confetti.

Meanwhile, 15 states are doing what they can to rescue the legal right to abortion. Twelve are crafting legislation, like New York’s Reproductive Health Act, that reaffirms in statute the court’s ruling in Roe. Three, and the District of Columbia, are moving beyond Roe: codifying a right to abortion throughout pregnancy without state interference. And one state, Vermont, is doing a little of both: proposing a state constitutional amendment that enshrines individual reproductive liberty as a basic right — and then hedging, suggesting that it may not be that basic after all.

These varying approaches show that the reproductive justice movement is divided not just about how to shelter legal abortion in its last redoubts now, but also how to win it back for all and for good. Before Roe, the question was: Reform abortion laws or repeal them altogether? Today that translates to: Hang onto a tattered Roe or scrap it and start anew? Vermont’s hybrid — or self-contradictory — strategy may hint of both a realization and a fear. Roe is probably a dead letter. But it is still a letter, something to hold onto. The movement’s confidence may be as tattered as the right it’s trying to defend.

What is wrong with Roe? A lot. First, it’s based on the right of privacy established in Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 ruling affirming a married couple’s freedom to use birth control. Many critics (including me) have argued that privacy — a young, relatively untested “penumbral” right not named in the Constitution but implied by other amendments — is a fragile support for the weighty human right of reproductive autonomy. Why not, say, the 13th Amendment’s prohibition on involuntary servitude, the use of one’s body against one’s will?

The second weakness is the framework the court set up in Roe, which shifts the balance of the state’s interest from the pregnant person’s rights as independent actor (and the fetus as part of the pregnant person) in early gestation to the fetus’s potential life as it matures toward viability: the point at which a baby can survive outside the womb, now about 24 weeks. A decade after Roe, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor alerted her colleagues that science was pushing viability earlier and earlier in gestation, progressively shaving weeks off the mother’s liberty; Roe, she said, was “on a collision course with itself.” And indeed, hardly an instant later, abortion opponents started revving the engines to accelerate that collision, promoting the myths — and passing laws based on them — that a fetus can feel pain during abortion or survive on its own at the first indication of a “fetal heartbeat” less than six weeks after conception. During oral arguments in Dobbs, Chief Justice John Roberts showed eagerness to eliminate the viability standard altogether, in effect cutting the brake line that keeps Roe from crashing.

The third flaw in the past 40-some years of legally defending Roe is the test O’Connor proposed as more enduring than viability: that the law impose no “undue burden” on the ability to get or provide an abortion. Undue burden is even feebler than privacy. At this point, there may be no burden SCOTUS’s conservatives consider undue: not driving thousands of miles, not having an ultrasound probe shoved up your vagina for no reason, not paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket. Apparently, no emotional burden is undue either. During the Dobbs colloquy, Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett brought up “safe haven laws,” which allow people to leave an unwanted newborn at a hospital or fire station anonymously and without criminal liability. Wouldn’t these provisions “take care of [the] problem” of forced parenthood, Barrett mused. Julie Rikelman, attorney for the abortion provider, responded that the issue at hand was forced pregnancy, which “imposes unique physical demands and risk on women and in fact has impact” on their families and livelihoods. Court etiquette inhibited Rikelman from voicing what was likely on her mind: “And which of your seven children would you put in a basket and float down the Nile, Your Honor?”

Vermont’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment aims to overcome these weaknesses. Introduced in 2019, the amendment easily passed the state Legislature, the mandated second time, this session. If the electorate votes yes on Proposition 5 on the November ballot, it will become part of the Vermont Constitution the next day. This is what it says:

That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.

At its most basic, the amendment makes permanent “conditions on the ground,” Senate President Pro Tempore Becca Balint, a co-sponsor and active champion of the bill, told me. This is a good thing, because at present Vermont’s policies are exemplary. The state requires no parental involvement in a minor’s decision to end a pregnancy, for instance, and compels Medicaid and private insurance to cover abortion and birth control. Healthy majorities support reproductive justice. The amendment passed the House by a vote of 107 to 41. Seven in 10 Vermont adults favor the right to abortion in most cases.

In this sense, the amendment might be more symbolic than practical. Still, as the first in the nation, the text serves as a signpost for other states. The problem: It’s hard to know which direction the signpost is pointing.

The first part, up to and including “shall not be denied or infringed,” is radical. It asserts that the roughly half of humans who bear uteruses are free to do with their bodies as they wish, period. The second half telegraphs second thoughts. The phrase “unless justified by a compelling state interest” hints that there might be legitimate and compelling justification to violate the fundamental right the state just finished declaring.

What compelling interest might Vermont have to violate the human right to bodily autonomy? This is not a theoretical question. All sorts of arbitrary and burdensome restrictions on abortion claim a compelling state interest. “Whereas the State of Florida has a compelling interest from the outset of a woman’s pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the unborn child,” and “the pregnant woman has a compelling interest in knowing the likelihood of her unborn child surviving to full-term birth based upon the presence of cardiac activity,” reads Florida’s Heartbeat Act, language that is nearly identical to other fetal heartbeat laws, including Texas’s, which effectively ban abortion at six weeks. In defending its 15-week ban, Mississippi had the chutzpah — and the wit — to use Roe and other pro-choice precedents against themselves. “The Supreme Court has long recognized … an ‘important and legitimate interest in protecting the potentiality of human life,’” it argued, quoting Roe. It went on to cite the state’s “interest in protecting the life of the unborn” as well as its “legitimate interests from the outset of pregnancy in protecting the health of women,” both from Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed Roe in 1992.

The Vermont amendment’s sponsors do not agree that its second clause kneecaps the first. The terms “compelling state interest” and “least restrictive means,” they note, echo the language of “strict scrutiny,” the highest level of judicial review. To be upheld as constitutional under this standard, a law must further a “compelling governmental interest” that cannot be achieved in any other way — and that way must be narrowly defined. One of the few triggers for strict scrutiny is the challenge that the legislation abridges a fundamental right.

Appending an asterisk to a human right is asking for trouble.

If the “unless” clause is compromise language intended to win more votes, neither Balint nor the chief sponsor, Vermont Senate Health and Welfare Committee Chair Ginny Lyons, admitted as much. Both insist that Clause No. 2 only strengthens the fundamental right to reproductive liberty. “Remember that the Roe v. Wade decision was based on something called privacy that doesn’t exist in the Constitution,” Lyons told me. “What we’ve learned from that is to place reproductive autonomy in the broader context of the state constitution.”

Article 1 of the Vermont Constitution proclaims: “All persons are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights.” Interestingly, also on Vermont’s ballot this November is Proposition 2, asking voters to ratify another amendment — no easy task in this state. Prop 2 repeals Article 1’s second half, which abolished servitude or slavery, “unless bound by the person’s own consent” or in payment of a debt. In its place would be the simple sentence “Slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited.”

Appending an asterisk to a human right is asking for trouble. Does the Eighth Amendment prohibit cruel and unusual punishment “unless justified by a compelling state interest”? Does the 19th proclaim, “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex — unless justified by a compelling state interest”? The one U.S. constitutional amendment with an exception written into it is the 13th, banning slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime.” As Michelle Alexander and other scholars argue, this loophole, inserted to gain ratification from Western states ambivalent about slavery, allowed the reincarnation of slavery in striped prison garb during Jim Crow and led to the mass incarceration of the descendants of enslaved people. What if Vermont’s “unless” clause, intended to preempt violation, actually invited it?

Now that there’s little left to lose, we might as well start over with what we really want.

At a meeting in the late 1960s, Cindy Cisler, a Redstockings co-founder and leading feminist organizer for repeal — not reform — of abortion laws, held up a blank piece of paper. “This,” she declared, “should be the abortion law.”

Now that there’s little left to lose, we might as well start over with what we really want. Replace the consumerist concept of reproductive choice with the principle of reproductive justice: not just the right to terminate a pregnancy but also to carry one healthily to term and raise the child in a safe and sustainable environment; not just the right to contraception but also the right to refuse it and to be free from forced sterilization or other eugenic coercions. Build this expansive definition of reproductive justice into the right to bodily autonomy. Elevate bodily autonomy in the U.S. to its global status, as an inalienable human right.

Then we should demand what we need from the government when it comes to abortion law. That is, nothing.

The post Roe Is Dead. Long Live Roe? appeared first on The Intercept.

Over the past 20 years, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality repeatedly issued compliance orders and documented environmental violations at the Cottonport Monofill tire processor and landfill, located next to the prison. The company never cleaned up its mess and declared bankruptcy seven years ago. On January 16, towering piles of tires and tire scraps caught fire, and they wouldn’t stop burning for 11 days.

As the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections tells it, favorable winds kept smoke safely away from the prison in the early days of the fire. Those inside, however, say they experienced respiratory problems and headaches for days before being evacuated.

People inside the prison attempted to cover vents with cardboard to keep the smoke out, but it wasn’t enough. Moore, who is 37, said that one of the men in his unit began coughing up blood. Several people interviewed by The Advocate also described smoke entering the facility soon after the fire began, followed quickly by health issues. The prison was already in the midst of a Covid-19 outbreak, with 307 people testing positive.

Finally, four days after the fire began, officials evacuated the prison. However, even as state environmental monitors collected evidence of elevated levels of volatile organic compounds and particulate matter in the air — both of which can cause health problems — the evacuees were not allowed to see medical staff until well after their return to Laborde on January 27, according to three people interviewed.

When they arrived at a previously shuttered part of Allen Correctional Center, “Everyone was trying to see the nurse,” recalled 29-year-old Rondell Delaney. “They said it’s too many people.” Watts said a nurse took the names of people with health impacts, but there was no follow-up.

Upon returning, “I told them I’m having chest pain and a hard time talking,” Delaney recalled. Prison staffers told him the nurses were backlogged and he should sign up for sick call, which costs $3 or $6 for emergencies. He estimated another two weeks passed before he was allowed to see a medical professional. Even then, “All they did was check our temperature and see if we had Covid.” A month after the fire began, Delaney’s voice was still hoarse. Delaney, Moore, and Watts were all still dealing with migraine headaches — something Moore said he’d never experienced before.

Although Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Chuck Carr Brown declared the tire fire and subsequent cleanup an emergency on February 8, people incarcerated at the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center say it didn’t translate into robust health checks for the 1,500 people who were locked inside next to the tire fire.

Ken Pastorick, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, denied that medical attention was inadequate. “A handful of prisoners who claimed health issues with the smoke were examined and cleared by the prison’s medical staff,” he said. “Employees effectively and efficiently executed the evacuation and return of prisoners without incident.”

To environmental experts, the burning tires represent a collision of failures by two state agencies that are supposed to protect the health of Louisiana’s most vulnerable people: the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Public Safety and Corrections.

Wilma Subra, an environmental scientist who has long worked with Louisiana communities coping with the health impacts of industrial disasters and pollution, said incarceration made a bad situation even worse. She surmised, “The evacuation would have happened earlier had it not been a prison.”

Pastorick replied, “Evacuating an entire prison is very rare, not something to take lightly, and must be fully warranted.”

Air Monitoring Dysfunction

Soon after the tires went up in flames, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality parked its Mobile Air Monitoring Laboratory, a big white van full of environmental sensors, on the northeast corner of the prison, between the fire and Laborde. The state scientists were looking especially for types of particulate matter so small they can lodge in people’s lungs and bloodstream, known as PM10 and PM2.5.

On January 17, the first day that the mobile laboratory delivered results, PM2.5 levels spiked to 97.5 micrograms per cubic meter, a level Kimberly Terrell, staff scientist and director of community engagement at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic in New Orleans said was concerning and likely representative of pollution levels for those downwind. “Very high levels of PM2.5 like this are definitely known to trigger asthma events and cause difficulty breathing. They have acute, immediate impacts,” she said. For the next two days, the lab’s readings were lower.

On the fifth day, “The wind direction shifted and significant quantities of smoke generated by the fire inundated the Correctional Center,” LDEQ’s declaration of emergency says. “The smoke generated by the fire was so significant that visibility was greatly impaired near the vicinity of the Site.”

Guards lined up Laborde’s prisoners outside in the bad air to wait for evacuation, according to two of the incarcerated people interviewed. People who had tested positive for Covid-19 were loaded onto buses alongside everyone else.

“Very high levels of PM2.5 like this are definitely known to trigger asthma events and cause difficulty breathing.”

Yet despite the dire conditions, the state’s lab equipment again recorded relatively low levels of pollution. It wasn’t because the air was clear. “The MAML was likely outside the edge of the smoke plume,” Langley said. Complicating matters further, the day before the evacuation, the Mobile Air Monitoring Laboratory’s power generator broke down, and LDEQ had to bring in a new van, which it placed in the same spot.

Issues like this are typical, Subra said. “Frequently they can’t put the MAML in the best place to monitor,” she said. Plus, “It’s had a history of breaking down.”

It’s also unclear what MAML readings would have triggered a response. Langley told The Intercept that readings above 15 parts per million for an extended period of time would be “concerning,” and a single reading of 100 would be cause for action. “If any receptors were within an area with readings that high, a shelter in place might be ordered,” he said.

Of course, the standard measurement for PM2.5 pollution data — and the measurement that LDEQ used for the MAML data it posted online — is micrograms per cubic meters, not parts per million.

Terrell said this kind of problem, too, is typical of LDEQ. “Yes, there was monitoring, but we are missing very basic information.”

The full spectrum of health impacts is difficult to determine without learning which chemicals were in the smoke. The LDEQ used canisters as well as handheld monitors to determine levels of volatile organic compounds, some of which are linked to cancers. Although LDEQ’s emergency declaration stated that they detected elevated levels of VOCs, Langley said he could not say which compounds his agency detected. He pointed to a laboratory backlog.

Satellite view of Louisiana’s Raymond Laborde Correctional Center and Cottonport Monofill tire processor and landfill, which is located right next to the correctional center.

Screenshot: Google Map

Years of Violations

Although the state fire marshal has not determined the fire’s cause, Langley said that environmental violations, documented by LDEQ for years, likely made things worse. “If a fire starts at a tire facility, the configuration of the tire stacks and presence of debris can contribute to the severity of the fire,” he said. “The tires were piled as high as 50 feet in areas and the piles were up to 100 yards wide. The area that burned did not have the proper spacing to provide fire breaks.”

Beginning in 2010, LDEQ filed three separate compliance orders against Cottonport Monofill, including a 2013 order describing tires piled too high and too close together, with fire lanes that were too narrow. The problems went unresolved as the years ticked by.

“DEQ is good at going out and inspecting sites, especially when someone complains,” said Subra. “They write up compliance orders, and they never get enforced.”

Cottonport Monofill filed for bankruptcy in 2015, a month after it applied to LDEQ for a new permit to operate. Despite the fact that the company was in bankruptcy court and still had an outstanding compliance order from 2013, LDEQ granted the new permit.

In 2019, the environmental agency issued another compliance order stating that the company failed to properly clean up the site, a process that would have involved shredding all the tires into chips and capping the landfill with clay. Instead, 100,000 tires remained, piled several times higher than the 10 feet allowed. Hydraulic fluid was spilled on the ground. The order demanded the facility’s owners take action within 30 days, stating that penalties of $32,500 per day were on the line. However, the situation was unchanged when inspectors returned that December.

Bankruptcy wasn’t enough for LDEQ to deny Cottonport Monofill’s permit, but it was enough for the agency to decide that no penalty should apply. “Due to the bankruptcy and inoperable status of the Respondent, the Department has not issued penalties to Cottonport Monofill LLC,” said Langley, over email. “Gross Revenues of the Respondent is one of the Factors the Department has to consider.”

Hunting for Accountability

It’s unclear who LDEQ expects to pay for the fire damage and the remaining tire debris. Langley said he couldn’t comment on liability. The agency’s inspection reports say First Guaranty Bank possessed the property after the bankruptcy. Yet bank Vice President Evan Singer denied to The Intercept that the bank is the owner or that it has responsibility for cleaning up the tire landfill.

Avoyelles Parish also has a stake in the property. Land records from the parish assessor’s office say the parish bought the property in a 2020 tax sale. However, Joey Frank, director of the parish Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness, said that the rules around tax sales mean the parish isn’t liable for the cleanup either.

According to the bank, the site is still owned by Ward Enterprises LLC. Listed in the permit as the facility’s owner is Lloyd D. Ward, a former Maytag CEO who was forced to resign as CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2003 amid allegations of ethics violations. Ward did not respond to requests for comment.

LDEQ’s failure to assure Cottonport Monofill resolved its environmental violations before it disappeared tracks with Louisiana’s recent history. Under former Gov. Bobby Jindal, funding for LDEQ was dramatically slashed, leaving the agency with a skeleton staff and weakened environmental enforcement. “DEQ does not issue enforcement actions in a timely manner,” stated a January 2021 report from the Louisiana Legislative Auditor, focusing on air quality violations.

For now, the state is on the hook for the fire’s expenses. “The declaration of emergency allowed LDEQ to direct state resources to address the fire and control the pollution resulting from the fire,” including 800 barrels of a type of oil produced when tires burn, said Langley.

Dancing With the Devil in Louisiana Prison

The tire fire wasn’t the only environmental problem Moore has experienced at the Laborde Correctional Center. According to The Intercept’s Climate and Punishment investigation, the prison is located in a county that has historically seen 110 days annually with a heat index over 90 degrees and 10 days over 105 degrees. By 2100, as the climate crisis deepens, the county will likely see as many as two months annually over 105, a level the National Weather Service considers dangerous.

Moore has witnessed people pass out from the heat. “In the summer you’re dancing with the devil. In the winter, there’s no heat,” he said.

The prison was also the subject of an Environmental Protection Agency Clean Water Act enforcement action in 2017 for wastewater treatment problems, something the federal agency rarely issues against a prison, according to an analysis by Nick Shapiro, director of the Carceral Ecologies lab at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Exacerbating all of it is poor health care. In a recent ruling, a judge described “overwhelming deficiencies” in another Louisiana prison’s medical system, violating the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

“The medical system in the prison altogether is like you’re the bottom of the barrel. You’re going to get treated like crap every time,” Moore said. The tire fire was no exception.

The post Burning Tires Left Louisiana Prisoners With Migraines, Breathing Problems, and Minimal Medical Care appeared first on The Intercept.

The offer came via his lawyer, Mark Loudon-Brown of the Atlanta-based Southern Center for Human Rights, on the eve of an evidentiary hearing in Andalusia, Alabama. As Loudon-Brown told Covington County Circuit Judge Lex Short the next day, Chief Assistant District Attorney Grace Jeter indicated “that if Mr. McCrory would be willing to admit guilt in this case, she had authority to consent to his release from prison.”

But McCrory said no. “He does not wish to do that,” Loudon-Brown said. “And so I wanted to make sure the record was clear on that.” A few feet away, Jeter remained expressionless. The judge asked if she had any response. “No, sir,” she said. The hearing would move forward as planned.

It was just after 1 p.m. on April 28, 2021, at the county courthouse in Andalusia, a small city just north of the Florida border. Down a hill behind the courthouse is the old county jail where McCrory was held following his arrest. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the decaying brick building stood grimly juxtaposed against a fleet of trucks belonging to the Covington Casket Company, the county’s oldest manufacturer. Covid-19 had brought a boom in business; on the day of the hearing, warehouse workers listened to music while lining caskets with fabric.

Charles and Julie McCrory with their son, Chad.

Credit: Courtesy of Larry Grissett

Souviron, the prosecution’s star witness at McCrory’s trial, has since changed his tune. In a 2019 affidavit, he recanted his testimony.

“As a forensic odontologist I no longer believe the individualized teeth marks comparison testimony I offered in his case was reliable or proper,” he wrote. “I no longer believe, as I did at the time of trial, that there is a valid scientific basis for concluding that the injury found on the skin of the victim in this case, assuming that the injury is in fact teeth marks, could be ‘matched’ or otherwise connected to a specific individual, such as Mr. McCrory.”

Rather than exonerate McCrory, however, prosecutors fought back, arguing among other things that because McCrory had challenged Souviron’s testimony in a previous appeal, he was barred from trying again. In December 2020, Short granted an evidentiary hearing to allow both sides to make their case.

It would be a consequential hearing. Over the last decade, bite-mark analysis has been thoroughly debunked as junk forensic science, a subjective pattern-matching practice that has seen dozens of people wrongly convicted. In fact, according to the Innocence Project — which has been on a mission to banish bite-mark evidence from the courtroom — McCrory is the last remaining defendant known to have been convicted almost solely on the faulty forensic practice. The expert witnesses at McCrory’s evidentiary hearing were dentists who were once true believers but now use their expertise to correct their colleagues’ past mistakes and educate judges about erroneous bite-mark analysis.

Although the science was on their side, McCrory’s lawyers were up against a criminal legal system that often favors finality over accuracy. They would still be fighting an uphill battle against prosecutors, and the courts, to clear their client’s name.

McCrory was not in attendance at the hearing. He was watching remotely from a minimum-security prison 175 miles to the north. Before he went to prison, McCrory was a computer whiz who taught classes at the local junior college — “a geek before it was fashionable to be one,” as one of his trial attorneys put it. McCrory’s son, Chad, recalled his grandmother saying that McCrory once claimed that every household would have a computer one day. “She was like, ‘Hey, no way, that’s just crazy,’” Chad said.

“The testimony had no value. That testimony convicted an innocent man.”

Chad was just 3 years old when his mom was murdered and his dad incarcerated. Now 39, he believes in his father’s innocence, which has left him estranged from his mother’s side of the family. In a blue suit, Chad sat with his wife and aunts on the left side of the courtroom, while his maternal uncle sat on the right, accompanied by his family and the former Covington County district attorney whose office charged McCrory back in 1985.

Loudon-Brown turned things over to Chris Fabricant, director of strategic litigation at the Innocence Project, who has led the legal efforts to extirpate bite-mark evidence. “Your Honor, at the time of Mr. McCrory’s 1985 trial, there had never been a single wrongful conviction attributable to the use of bite-mark evidence,” Fabricant began. The forensic discipline was widely accepted in courtrooms across the country. But “the Innocence Project has documented 35 wrongful convictions and indictments attributable to the use of bite-mark comparison in criminal trials,” he went on. “As we stand here today, bite marks are no longer accepted in the scientific community.”

Fabricant emphasized that Souviron himself, one of the field’s founding practitioners, had disavowed his testimony against McCrory. “There was no science behind what he had to say. The testimony had no value. That testimony convicted an innocent man.”

Woman Down

As Charles McCrory recalled, the day his wife was found murdered started out fairly routine.

It was May 31, 1985, and the Alabama Electric Cooperative, where he worked as information systems manager, had just switched to a 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. workday. It only meant coming in half an hour earlier, but he still hadn’t nailed the timing, and that Friday he was running late, meaning he didn’t have time to swing by Hardee’s to pick up a biscuit and a Coke for breakfast.

The same thing had happened the day before. Julie had dropped by his office and agreed to make a run to Hardee’s. As he later recounted, McCrory thought maybe she’d help him out again, so he picked up the phone at his desk and called her.

The couple had recently separated after a decade together. They’d met as students at Andalusia High School. McCrory was 17 and Julie was 14. They dated for five years before getting married. In 1982 they had a son, Chad. But lately they’d been struggling. McCrory was bored; he and Julie had been together so long. Their sex life was great, but he’d been feeling like he needed more. He’d had an affair with a co-worker at the local junior college, though he’d mostly broken that off too.

Still, he and Julie got along well. Although he’d moved out, they still spent plenty of time together. In fact, he’d been over at the house they’d shared on Lori Lane the previous evening. Julie did his laundry. They sat in the den and played with Chad while “Hill Street Blues” was on TV, before stealing away to the bedroom to have sex. Julie removed a fabric belt from one of her dresses and loosely tied his wrists to the bedpost; he didn’t object. He left the house with two baskets of freshly folded laundry just after the nightly news came on. He kissed Julie and Chad goodbye and pulled his Ford Bronco out of the driveway with a honk and a wave — Chad always liked it when he did that.

But on Friday morning, Julie was not answering the phone. She didn’t have to be at work until 8, so maybe she was in transit to his parents’ house, where McCrory’s mom watched Chad on workdays. McCrory called his mom, who said Julie hadn’t been by yet. At 8 he called her job; Julie wasn’t there.

Fifteen minutes later, McCrory’s mom called back. She was worried. Julie had never been so late to drop off Chad. She told McCrory that his father was going to the house on Lori Lane to check on them. McCrory was worried now too. As he headed out in his Bronco, the two-way radio mounted in the cab crackled with life. McCrory was a longtime volunteer with the city’s rescue squad and served as the crew’s second-in-command. The radio communicated on both rescue squad and Andalusia Police Department channels.

He recognized the voice coming over the radio as that of Jeff Holland, a city fire department employee; they were making a run to Lori Lane. All they knew was that “a woman was down,” McCrory later recalled. He told Holland that he was also en route. McCrory arrived before the squad. He was headed toward the front door when he ran into his dad, who was in a frenzy. Something was “bad wrong” with Julie, he told McCrory.

McCrory went into the house. All the lights were off. Julie was lying prone just inside the entrance. Her pink nightgown was pushed up around her torso. Her head was turned to the side, beaten and bloodied, and her eyes were blackened. She was obviously dead. McCrory rushed out of the house stricken. He asked his dad about Chad and his father said he was OK; he’d found Chad in his bed. The boy was now across the street, where the neighbors were taking care of him.

When the rescue squad arrived, McCrory approached Holland and told him that Julie was dead. Holland checked her for vital signs before calling the police.

Investigators Billy Treadaway and Wade Garrett were the first cops to arrive. Treadaway quickly realized they would need backup. He radioed police dispatch and asked them to call a forensics guy, Charlie Brooks, from the state crime lab about an hour away. Treadaway put crime scene tape around the property and talked to McCrory. “He said that he hoped that I get the fellow that done it,” Treadaway later testified.

Brooks, Treadaway, and Garrett examined the scene. The house wasn’t immaculate, but it was about what you’d expect with a toddler around. Treadaway didn’t see any signs of a struggle or forced entry, and McCrory’s father said the front door was ajar when he’d arrived. There were no bloody footprints or fingerprints. Two windows in the master bedroom were open, but the investigators disregarded this, according to court records. Instead, as the day warmed up, they closed them and turned on the air conditioning.

Garrett, who previously worked for the Alabama Bureau of Investigation and had been trained as a fingerprint examiner, did not dust the windows for prints. He also failed to print a sliding glass door, and he never went into the bathroom. In fact, even though he remained at the house until early the following morning, Garrett didn’t dust much of anything save for the front doorknob, a pitcher on the kitchen table, a chair that was pulled back from the table, and some fast-food promotional glasses in the sink — two Snoopy glasses and a Care Bears glass.

The medical examiner noted one additional injury: Two “semi-lunar” indentations to the back of Julie’s right arm.

Eventually the investigators made a closer inspection of Julie’s body. Her head had been bashed in and the front of her nightgown was saturated with blood. There were hairs in her left hand and on her chest, which Brooks collected. He noted that a length of pantyhose was tied around her right wrist. There was also a red bandanna on the floor not far from her body.

The investigators searched for a murder weapon to no avail. Although no one inspected the kitchen knives or any other sharp utensils, Treadaway did notice that a fire poker, part of a set of tools in the den, was missing. At some point, Garrett’s attention was called to a footprint outside — just beyond the McCrorys’ back fence, which abutted the property of a local business, Bullard Excavating. The footprint was photographed.

Around 6 p.m., Brooks and Treadaway drove Julie’s body nearly three hours north to Montgomery, where Dr. Joseph Sapala, a state medical examiner, conducted the autopsy. There were long bruises across the back of Julie’s hand, and her jaw was broken in two places. There were 11 small, rectangular puncture wounds to her chest — at more than four inches deep, they’d damaged her left lung and pulmonary artery. And then there were the head wounds, which Sapala ultimately determined to be the cause of death. Six were described as “chop wounds,” presumably blows made by a sharp instrument. Another Sapala described as a blunt force injury that fractured Julie’s skull.

Finally, the medical examiner noted one additional injury: Two “semi-lunar” indentations to the back of Julie’s right arm. He placed a penny by the wounds for scale — together they were no wider than the coin’s diameter — and an assistant took a photo. Sapala concluded that this was a bite mark.

While Sapala catalogued the many injuries Julie had sustained, his resulting report was cursory. It did not indicate whether her body was in rigor, nor did it mention the degree of lividity — the gravitational pooling of blood in the body after death — both of which might have provided at least a general time of death. Instead, in trial testimony, it was Brooks who offered the lay opinion that Julie had been killed sometime in the early morning hours.

Over the next few days, police would question McCrory several times. Each time, he recounted the same story about his relationship with Julie: that he’d been with her in the house Thursday night and that he hadn’t been able to reach her Friday morning. He let police search his Bronco and his apartment, but they found nothing.

Roughly 24 hours after Julie’s body was found, investigators took McCrory to see his dentist, Dr. William King. McCrory had consented to the dentist making a mold of his teeth for casting. King looked at McCrory’s mouth; he didn’t see any cuts or bruising on his lips or gums. McCrory seemed calm, King later testified, but he also noticed that he was shaking.

King, who still practices in Andalusia, remembers taking the molds from McCrory. Law enforcement agents stood by as he worked. “They didn’t ever leave my sight,” he said. He recalled being shocked when McCrory became a suspect. He was “mild-mannered,” King said, a guy he would never have imagined to be a murderer. “Of course, I’m sure everybody does that when they look back. … I just wouldn’t have guessed that.”

Illustration: Clay Rodery for The Intercept

Everybody Turned So Quick

Julie McCrory was buried on June 3 in a graveside service at the Andalusia Memorial Cemetery, just two blocks away from her home. The family could see police parked nearby in unmarked cars. One of them was Andalusia police officer Howard Easley. Afterward, Easley recalled, “I stopped McCrory in his vehicle and asked if he would come with me to the Sheriff’s Department, which he did voluntarily, driving his own vehicle.”

Easley had also responded to the scene the day Julie was found. He recalled being put off by McCrory’s demeanor that morning. He seemed “nonchalant,” Easley said. “No emotion whatsoever.” Among law enforcement agents, suspicion over McCrory’s bearing quickly hardened into a belief in his guilt. When McCrory’s sister ReNay McCrory Smith visited him in jail the day after his arrest, she remembers the sheriff telling her, “He’s a murderer, and I don’t have any use for him.”

“What really put me off with Andalusia at the time is how everybody turned so quick when all this happened,” Smith said. “Here’s a guy that’d been working on the rescue squad as a volunteer all these years. … And he was an auxiliary policeman as well. And nobody stood up for him and said, ‘There’s no way this guy could have done this.’”

“Here’s a guy that’d been working on the rescue squad as a volunteer all these years. … And nobody stood up for him.”

The murder shattered the town’s sense of safety. McCrory’s younger sister, Laura Grissett, who babysat Chad as a teenager, remembered Julie sometimes leaving her car running for half an hour outside when picking him up. “But after that, you just didn’t do it anymore,” she said. Their father was especially traumatized. “Daddy nailed the windows shut,” Grissett said. “He’d check under the beds before we were allowed to go in the house because he was terrified.”

The community was still reeling from the murder when, just over a month later, another young woman was abducted and raped not far from where Julie had been found. A man named Alton Ainsworth, who worked at Bullard Excavating, was quickly arrested and later pleaded guilty to the crime. Police questioned Ainsworth but never fully investigated him as a possible suspect in Julie’s murder — even though he was known to wear a red bandanna like the one found near her body.

On the day McCrory was arrested, his dental molds were transported to the state’s head medical examiner in Montgomery, along with photos of the injury Sapala believed to be a bite mark. The medical examiner called Souviron, a renowned forensic odontologist, in Coral Gables, Florida.

Souviron, 48, had impressive credentials — and a knack for getting good press. A style columnist once praised him alongside other “gentlemen of distinction” for a cut that gave his thinning hair “a rugged, touchable look.” In the late 1970s, as the burgeoning field of bite-mark analysis caught on nationwide, the Miami Herald published a glowing profile of Souviron titled “The Dentist as Detective: A Pioneer in Criminology.” But his biggest claim to fame was as a star witness against serial killer Ted Bundy in 1979. Newspapers printed large photos of Souviron holding a wooden pointer while presenting oversize images of Bundy’s teeth to the jury. Souviron enjoyed taking the stand. “It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s challenging to have someone cross-examine you,” he told the Herald. “I guess it’s because I feel secure in what I testify to.”

Souviron told the medical examiner that he would review the evidence in Julie McCrory’s murder. On August 14, 1985, a week after receiving the dental models, photographs of Julie’s injuries, and the autopsy report, he sent a letter reporting his findings. Although only one of the 28 photographs “would be of value in making an actual one to one comparison with the models of Mr. McCrory,” he wrote, he’d found some “unusual phenomena.” McCrory’s upper left lateral incisor was missing, leaving a “seven millimeter space” between the upper left front tooth and his upper left canine. Based on these observations, he concluded, “the marks in the arm could have been made by the teeth of Mr. Charles McCrory.”

Souviron’s letter contained some key caveats, however. “First of all, it is impossible in my opinion, unless very unusual circumstances exist, to make a positive identification from two teeth of a bite mark,” Souviron wrote. What’s more, the photographs appeared to show only two upper teeth, which was odd since the upper jaw is fixed; the lower teeth are the ones that “grab and hold.” Further, the defense might argue that the injury could have been made by the same instrument that inflicted the puncture wounds on Julie’s chest, Souviron wrote. Ultimately, “if there is [a] substantial amount of additional evidence such as fingerprints, blood, hair, semen, etc.,” then the marks shown in the photos “would be of some value.” But if the marks were the sole means of identifying the perpetrator, he cautioned, “I feel that this is not in the best interest of justice.”

Despite the gruesome crime scene, no physical evidence had been linked to McCrory.

In other words, Souviron might be willing to say that the rather ambiguous-looking injury was a bite mark so long as plenty of other evidence implicated McCrory too.

This posed a problem for authorities. Despite the gruesome crime scene, no physical evidence had been linked to McCrory. Investigators never found a murder weapon. The hairs collected from the body belonged only to Julie, and while some of the random fingerprints on the furniture and kitchenware matched McCrory, that was hardly compelling given that he was often at the house on Lori Lane. As for the footprint out back, the pantyhose, and the red bandanna, no one ever figured out where they came from.

Still, police had found a couple of items at the home that might prove useful: a VHS tape and a collection of photographs featuring Julie and her husband in various kinky scenarios. The images were graphic and, to some, shocking. “There is more than one scene in which the young lady is — what is considered in bondage,” a defense witness testified at a pretrial hearing on August 21.

Although the activities depicted were consensual, prosecutors sought to introduce the tape and photos as evidence against McCrory at trial. The goal was apparently to show that McCrory had deviant sexual proclivities that escalated as he sought further gratification — or as one prosecutor put it, that “bondage sex” could lead to “stronger and stronger acts of violence.” Although defense attorneys convinced the trial judge not to allow the items into evidence, gossip soon ran rampant throughout the town. Some said Julie’s murder had been the result of some kind of sex ring.

One reporter who covered the trial for the Andalusia Star-News remembers “a lot of rumors, innuendo” surrounding the tape and photographs. In a “small South Alabama town, you know, deep in the heart of the Bible Belt,” those things didn’t have to make it into court to have an impact.

A photo taken by Dr. Richard Souviron shows the injury on Julie McCrory’s arm alongside Charles McCrory’s dental mold.

Photo: Courtesy of the Southern Center for Human Rights

This Set of Teeth

McCrory’s trial began on October 21, 1985, at the Covington County District Court. It was less than five months after Julie’s murder. Elected District Attorney Grady Lanier was intent on moving forward quickly, even without such key evidence as a murder weapon. “When you see the blows that were on the back of her head, you didn’t need a weapon,” he said. “They spoke for themselves.” Besides, in his experience, convictions were easier to win when a crime was still fresh in a community’s mind.

The courtroom was packed with spectators. Representing McCrory was M.A. “Bubba” Marsal, a prominent criminal defense lawyer from Mobile whose high-profile clients included a follower of Charles Manson and a Ku Klux Klan member who’d been sent to death row. Known perhaps for his charisma more than his legal prowess, Marsal was paired with a younger local attorney named Larry Grissett (no relation to McCrory’s sister).

On the state’s side was an unorthodox arrangement: Rather than rely on Lanier to secure the conviction, Julie’s family had hired a local father-son legal team: personal injury attorney Frank Tipler and his son Harvey. While uncommon, hiring a private prosecutor was “not illegal” in Alabama, a 1988 report in the Montgomery Advertiser found. One lawyer told the paper it was a bad idea. “If you have the victims hiring a lawyer to prosecute a case, that lawyer will be hell-bent to send the defendant to the penitentiary … and to drag him through the mud, regardless of the amount of evidence against him.”

“I do not think we can truly have a future until all the past is dead.”

The trial transcript does not include opening or closing remarks. But the state’s theory appears to have been that McCrory had grown tired of his marriage and brutally murdered his wife to be free from her. As their first witness, prosecutors called 31-year-old Gloria Wiggins, the former co-worker with whom McCrory had recently had an affair, and asked her to read several letters the two exchanged. But apart from some tortured declarations of love, there was no evidence that McCrory was planning a future with Wiggins. In one letter, he wrote that his wife and son would always be a part of his life.

Rather than point this out, however, Marsal shamed Wiggins for carrying on a relationship with a married man. Most confusingly — and perhaps most damaging to his client — Marsal seized on a line from a letter Wiggins wrote shortly before Julie’s murder, asking her “to read it loud so every juror can hear it.” Wiggins read: “I do not think we can truly have a future until all the past is dead.” That line was published in the newspaper the next day.

Next came the investigators. With no physical evidence linking McCrory to the crime, prosecutors emphasized assorted bits of circumstantial evidence, including a question McCrory asked Treadaway, the lead investigator, hours after arriving at the scene: Had Julie died from “the lick on the back of her head”? Could a person look at Julie’s body lying on the floor and discern that there’d been a “lick” on the back of her head? Frank Tipler asked Treadaway. “I couldn’t tell,” Treadaway said. “So whoever asked it had to already know about it, didn’t they?” Tipler said.

On cross-examination, Marsal pointed out that “this lady was lying on the floor in a pool of blood” and “her head was crushed in, wasn’t it?” Yes, Treadaway said, but “you couldn’t see the lick on the back of the head. You could just see her head splattered open.”

Treadaway appeared to know shockingly little about the work that had been done to solve the case or consider alternate suspects. He did not go to Bullard Excavating and question anyone about the murder. “I don’t know who talked to them,” he testified. Nor did Treadaway know anything about the footprint found near the fence. As for Alton Ainsworth, the Bullard employee known to wear a red bandanna, “I’ve heard the name,” Treadaway said.

Garrett, the second investigator, testified about the eight fingerprints he took from the scene, all of which matched either Julie or McCrory. But he did not explain why he lifted prints from the Snoopy and Care Bears glasses while ignoring things like the bedroom windows and the back gate. Marsal asked about the footprint Garrett photographed outside the fence. “Did you ever attempt to compare that with any other print or shoe or any of the employees over at Bullard Construction Company?” “No, sir,” Garrett said.

On the second day of trial, prosecutors called Huey Dewayne Meeks, a 20-year-old with a military haircut who’d been brought back to testify during boot camp with the National Guard. Meeks was staying at his grandfather’s house, diagonal from the McCrory residence, on Friday, May 31. Although it was still dark out when he left for work at 5:15 a.m., Meeks said he noticed McCrory’s Ford Bronco parked outside. He later told his grandfather about it.

On cross-examination, Marsal pointed to a conflicting account Meeks had apparently given police. Didn’t he previously say he might have seen the car on a different day? Meeks admitted that he had. But he reiterated that he saw the Bronco on Friday. His testimony was bolstered by his grandfather, who testified that he too saw the Bronco that morning from his dining room.

“You tell me that’s the guy who did it, and I’ll go into court and say that’s the guy that did it.”

The last and most important witness for the state was Souviron. Earlier that year he had helped win a death sentence against a Florida man named Robert DuBoise, who insisted on his innocence while on trial for rape and murder. At that trial, defense attorneys confronted Souviron with a speech he’d made at a conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, in which he told the audience, “You tell me that’s the guy who did it, and I’ll go into court and say that’s the guy that did it.” Souviron said the remarks had been taken out of context.

Souviron testified that he’d been involved in forensic dentistry since the mid-1960s. “I have had numerous post-graduate courses, but more important I think is the fact that in those days it was a relatively new field and basically I taught most of the courses, and still do,” he said. He estimated that he had testified as an expert in at least 50 cases in up to 14 states. Prosecutors asked for him to be admitted as an expert. “No problem,” said Marsal.

Despite the letter Souviron had written warning that relying solely on the purported bite mark would not be “in the best interest of justice,” Souviron now said that the models and photographs were “good, quality evidence.” He documented his technique in a series of photographs, which he presented to the jury.

One showed a close-up of McCrory’s dental molds positioned over an enlarged photo of the alleged bite mark. “The left cuspid tooth when lined up with the bite fits into that little round puncture wound,” Souviron said. Especially important was the space between the two upper left teeth, which would usually contain another tooth, the lateral incisor. But as Souviron explained, McCrory was missing this tooth — he had been born without it.

Tipler asked a question that allowed Souviron to explain away the missing lower teeth. “Would you classify them as bite marks or teeth marks?” he asked. “That’s a good point,” Souviron replied. “This is not a bite mark. You have just two teeth that show here.” His conclusion: The mark on Julie’s arm “was the result of the arm being thrust into the teeth rather than the teeth being bitten into the arm.”

Souviron’s thrusting-arm theory appeared to conflict with the conclusions of Sapala, the medical examiner, who’d determined that the blows to Julie’s head came first, followed by the puncture injuries. The latter had been inflicted at or near her time of death, he’d found. If Julie had already suffered a mortal injury, it would have been difficult for her to thrust her arm anywhere.

Still, Souviron’s testimony was persuasive. King, the dentist who made McCrory’s dental molds and testified at trial, remembers being somewhat skeptical of Souviron’s analysis. But he could see how a juror would have found the testimony compelling. “If I was on the fence,” King said, “and then they threw those big enlargements of the models and the tissue photographs … and they told you ‘these match perfectly’ … it would be enough to sway you to say he’s guilty.” After all, according to Souviron, McCrory’s dentition was unique enough to make the match a near-mathematical certainty. Only 1 percent of the population would be missing a lateral incisor, he testified. “The percent of the population missing only the upper left lateral incisor is even smaller,” he said. “So my feeling is that there is a high degree of consistency between this set of teeth and those teeth marks left on the arm of Mrs. McCrory.”

The next day, the jury found McCrory guilty. “You have anything to say before I adjudge you guilty of murder?” the judge asked.

“No, sir,” McCrory said. “Other than I just did not do it.”

Illustration: Clay Rodery for The Intercept

Hour of Reckoning

It was mid-afternoon when Dr. Adam Freeman was called to testify at McCrory’s evidentiary hearing in April 2021. Freeman was once a true believer in bite-mark evidence and a powerful figure within the American Board of Forensic Odontology, or ABFO, the group that certifies forensic dentists. But that had changed. Now he would be testifying for the defense — and criticizing Souviron, a former mentor.

For Freeman, the journey to Andalusia began on September 11, 2001. He runs a successful dental practice in Westport, Connecticut. Many of his patients commute to New York City for work, and several were killed in the attack on the World Trade Center, including one he considered a good friend. Afterward, first responders — including medical examiners and forensic dentists — combed through the rubble to identify victims. The remains of Freeman’s friend were eventually sent home in 13 separate body bags.

He came away from the tragedy wanting to do more. He knew disasters were inevitable. As a dentist, he felt that he could play a valuable role by helping identify victims through dental remains. “If you look at the human experience, I can think of nothing less humanized than to die and … have no identity at death,” he said. “Sort of as my tribute to our patients that were lost, I started to get involved in the forensic field.”

Freeman took a course in forensic pathology, where he met the president of the ABFO, who had run the dental identification unit after the Oklahoma City bombing and worked on the ground after 9/11. Freeman aspired to do the same kind of work; ambitious, with a robust ego, he was determined to become certified by the ABFO, a long and expensive process, and become one of its most elite experts. Before long he was being mentored by some of the field’s most celebrated practitioners, including Dr. David Senn, who had created a fiefdom training forensic dentists at the University of Texas at San Antonio, as well as Souviron, one of Freeman’s earliest champions.

While Freeman originally wanted to do dental identifications, he was quickly drawn into another aspect of the field: bite-mark analysis, or the practice of determining whether a patterned injury on a victim is the result of a bite and can be matched to the dentition of a suspected biter. Looking at images of alleged bite marks, Freeman didn’t always see what his mentors were seeing, but he would listen as they discussed their cases. “You would sit with these guys at dinner … and they would not only talk about it, but then they would be like, ‘And look, here’s my badge,’” he recalled. “‘I’m so good at this the police department or the coroner’s office gave me a badge because I’m helping protect society from these predators.’ And … at first blush, you’re like, ‘Hey, I want to be one of those — I want to be the guy that helps do that.’” In 2009, Freeman earned his certification.

That same year, however, bite-mark analysis was hit with the first of a series of high-profile blows. The National Academy of Sciences published a landmark study of forensic practices that called into question the scientific validity and reliability of nearly every discipline used to convict people and send them to prison. The majority, it found, lacked any scientific underpinning. The authors were especially rough on bite-mark matching. “Although the majority of forensic odontologists are satisfied that bite marks can demonstrate sufficient detail for positive identification,” the report read, “no scientific studies support this assessment.”

Bite-mark analysis rests on a two-pronged foundation. First, that human dentition is unique, like DNA, and second, that skin is a suitable substrate to accurately record that uniqueness. There is no science to back either assertion. In fact, research into the practice has generally revealed the opposite: that human dentition isn’t unique and that skin — as malleable as it is — is a poor medium for preserving an accurate record of injury, all of which renders bite-mark analysis a random and purely subjective practice.

Freeman was rattled by the National Academy of Sciences report. But the reaction of many of his colleagues, including Senn and Souviron, was downright hostile. Over the next decade, they would lash out at their growing number of critics, even attempting to oust one of their own, a California dentist named C. Michael Bowers. Bowers had been ringing the alarm over bite-mark analysis since the late ’90s. After the National Academy of Sciences report echoed his concerns, veteran members of the ABFO concocted a dubious ethics complaint about Bowers, which they filed with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences — the nation’s preeminent umbrella organization for forensic practitioners. The attempt to destroy Bowers’s credibility failed, leading to a public meltdown in 2015, when a furious Souviron confronted the academy’s then-president, Victor Weedn, over the complaint’s dismissal: “Don’t you have any balls?” Souviron demanded. (Weedn said that Souviron later apologized for the outburst.)

That same year brought more trouble for the ABFO — and this time Freeman, now president of the organization, would be in the middle of it. In an attempt to impose standards for practitioners, Freeman and a colleague designed a “construct validity study” focused on the first question forensic dentists should ask: Is this a bite mark? This might seem absurdly basic, but bite-mark analysis rarely starts with ground truth — a victim in a homicide case can’t tell you that they were bitten, so whether any given injury is actually a bite mark is often unknown.

A box-opening injury that board-certified odontologists mistakenly identified as a bite mark.

Credit: Courtesy of the Southern Center for Human Rights

“We can’t get this basic piece right, and there are people who have been put to death in Texas based on bite marks.”

The dentists’ answers were all over the place. Sixty percent of the respondents identified the box-opening injury as a bite mark. Freeman was shocked. “The research starts coming in and … for me, it was just so seminal. It was like, wait a second,” he recalled. “We can’t get this basic piece right, and there are people who have been put to death in Texas based on bite marks.”

Freeman was slated to present the results at the 2015 academy conference. But the results were so dismal that the researchers decided to give veteran ABFO members, like Senn, a heads up. According to Freeman, Senn asked him to rerun the study using just the answers supplied by an elite group of veterans, including himself. Freeman agreed — and the results were worse. Then Senn asked him to hold the research altogether. Freeman was adamant that they couldn’t. “And therein lies my downfall,” he said. Senn did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

Like Bowers before him, Freeman soon found himself the subject of a questionable ethics complaint; it also failed. But it was a turning point for Freeman. He’d seen the truth, he said: Bite-mark analysis was bunk, and he worried about the people it had sent to prison. In 2020, Freeman penned his official resignation from the ABFO. “In my opinion, we have an absolute duty, and ethical obligation to correct our past mistakes,” he wrote. “Diplomates have participated in far too many wrongful convictions resulting in hundreds of years of wrongfully convicted people in prison.”

Their Own Junk Science

In his testimony at McCrory’s hearing, Freeman did not mince words: Souviron had gotten it wrong back at trial. There was no scientific basis for his presumption that the two marks found on Julie’s arm were made by teeth, nor for his conclusion that McCrory’s supposedly unique dentition had made the marks.

And it turns out that Souviron now agrees. “I no longer believe, as I did at the time of trial, that there is a valid scientific basis for concluding that the injury found on the skin of the victim … could be ‘matched’ or otherwise connected to a specific individual, such as Mr. McCrory,” Souviron wrote in his 2019 recantation. “I therefore renounce that testimony.”

Freeman told the court that he was familiar with “several cases” Souviron had gotten wrong over the years. Fabricant, the Innocence Project lawyer, had already mentioned two — including that of DuBoise, the Florida man whom Souviron helped send to death row just months before testifying against McCrory. After decades behind bars, DuBoise was finally exonerated in August 2020.

“Dr. Souviron is a friend. I take absolutely no pleasure in criticizing a man who has helped mentor me, who has championed me, and who quite honestly as a person, I like,” Freeman said. “This is a very uncomfortable position to be put in.”

“And so why are you doing it?” Fabricant asked.

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” he replied.

Freeman said that he didn’t think the marks on Julie’s arm were made by teeth. There was a similar-looking injury near Julie’s armpit that everyone had just ignored. He also noted that it didn’t make sense that a bite mark would be left solely by two upper teeth: “It is almost impossible to create a mark … where you’d only see upper teeth.”

Regardless, the idea that the marks could be matched to anyone in particular was ludicrous. “With just two marks,” Freeman said, “if I had the dental lineup of his Honor and you and anybody else in this courtroom, I would likely make those fit those two marks.”

“It is almost impossible to create a mark … where you’d only see upper teeth.”

Freeman was not alone in his opinion. Also testifying was Dr. Cynthia Brzozowski, a veteran dentist from New York who has been involved in forensics since the early ’90s. When she was starting out, she was “led to believe” that bite-mark analysis was “based on valid science,” she said. Now, like Freeman, she felt she had an “ethical and civic responsibility” to testify in cases like McCrory’s. She agreed that there was no way to conclude that the marks on Julie’s arm were made by teeth in the first place, let alone McCrory’s teeth.

Jeter, the prosecutor, tried to draw a distinction between analyzing a bite mark and analyzing teeth marks, suggesting that what Souviron had done in the McCrory case wasn’t actually bite-mark analysis. Brzozowski was firm: “We don’t have criteria for teeth marks,” she said.

As Jeter went on, she tried to rehabilitate the state’s case by eliciting agreement that Souviron’s testimony was perfectly proper by 1985 “standards” — even though whatever standards did exist back then have been thoroughly disavowed. And then she insinuated that Souviron hadn’t really recanted his trial testimony. Jeter noted that when interviewed by an investigator from the district attorney’s office, Souviron said he still believed that the wound on Julie’s arm was made by teeth, but he would not testify now with the same “high degree of certainty” that they were McCrory’s teeth. Fabricant objected; the state hadn’t called Souviron as a witness, so inserting this thirdhand assertion into evidence was improper. But the judge allowed it.

In fact, Souviron told The Intercept that he didn’t say the things Jeter was ascribing to him. He said he’d been subpoenaed but that the state released him from the obligation prior to the hearing. His interview with the Andalusia law enforcement official had been recorded, he added, so it should be easy to disprove Jeter’s account. “She’s wasting her time,” he said. “If that’s the best she can do, forget it.”

As it turned out, that was about the best Jeter could do. When it was her turn to present evidence that McCrory’s conviction should be upheld, Jeter deployed an odd strategy: She called the DA’s investigator as a witness, and the two of them read into evidence cherry-picked segments from the 1985 trial transcript. Over an objection from Loudon-Brown, McCrory’s lawyer, who pointed out that the judge already had the full record, they included police investigator Billy Treadaway’s description of McCrory asking about the “lick” on the back of Julie’s head. Notably, Jeter omitted Treadaway’s subsequent acknowledgment that it was clear Julie’s head had been “splattered open.”

The point was to portray the original case against McCrory as more substantial than it was and thus able to stand even without Souviron’s definitive testimony. Wrapping up her case, Jeter called the state’s only actual witness at the hearing: Meeks, the National Guard trainee who claimed that he saw McCrory’s Bronco while standing outside his grandfather’s house in the dark almost 36 years earlier.

Now in his late 50s, Meeks had taken off work to appear in court and did not seem happy to be there. But instead of asking him questions about what he’d allegedly seen back in 1985, Jeter asked Meeks to read his previous testimony into the record. Loudon-Brown was quick to protest: “He’s a live witness. He needs to testify from personal knowledge, not some words on a paper.” But again, the judge let Jeter proceed. It did not go well. After Jeter read the questions Meeks was asked at trial, Meeks seemed confused. He abandoned his trial testimony and began answering as if he was being asked the questions anew. Jeter repeatedly cut him off and tried to get him back on script before the judge finally interrupted, changed his previous ruling, and brought the whole sideshow to an end. Before dismissing Meeks, Jeter asked him a single question: Did he stand by his trial testimony? “Yes, ma’am,” he replied.

In closing, Loudon-Brown homed in on the key role that Souviron played in McCrory’s conviction. All the state had was an assortment of weak circumstantial evidence that didn’t add up to much until Souviron got on the stand. “That right there sealed his fate,” Loudon-Brown said. “It was identification testimony. And now that dentist who offered that testimony has said that’s not true.”

He called the judge’s attention to a poster board featuring photos of some of the dozens of individuals wrongfully convicted based on junk bite-mark evidence. “There was evidence at every single one of those peoples’ trials sufficient to convict that person at trial,” he said. “This case is different in one way: There is no other evidence that implicates Mr. McCrory.”

When it was her turn to address the judge, Jeter noted that a conviction could stand on circumstantial evidence alone and that even without Souviron’s expert testimony the jurors could have drawn “reasonable inferences” that McCrory had killed his wife. With that, she launched into a sprawling, fever-dream narrative built wholly on speculation. She suggested that the letters McCrory had exchanged with Wiggins were evidence of a “web of deceit he had woven” and that he needed a way out. The jurors could have concluded that McCrory’s having honked his horn as he left Julie and Chad in the doorway the last evening they were together was “the beginning of his alibi,” Jeter said, a way of announcing to the neighborhood that he was leaving, “that he would not be there when she was murdered later.”

As Jeter’s story rose to a crescendo, she stopped referring to the jurors at all. She described how McCrory had continued his ruse the following morning by calling around pretending to look for Julie when he knew exactly where she was. “He knew she was not answering the phone because she was dead. And he knew that his … child was essentially at home alone, completely unsupervised, with his dead mother,” she said. “But of course, he wouldn’t want to be the first one on the scene. He needed somebody else to find her,” so he tricked his dad into going to the house on Lori Lane.

Jeter eventually turned back to the bite mark, noting that under state law, the jurors could’ve taken the molds of McCrory’s teeth and the photos of Julie’s injury and physically compared them for themselves. “And Judge, they could well have done that with or without Dr. Souviron’s testimony,” she said.

In response, Loudon-Brown noted that the jurors weren’t “allowed to engage in their own junk science.”

Illustration: Clay Rodery for The Intercept

No Winners

The hearing concluded around 6 p.m. Lawyers were given a deadline to submit post-hearing briefs. Beyond that, there was no way to know when the judge would rule.

The next day, Keith Harward sat at a picnic table at a campground and RV park a few miles from downtown Andalusia. He’d traveled for the hearing on behalf of the Innocence Project, only to be kicked out of the courtroom after an angry outburst. “I should know better,” he said. But he couldn’t stand listening to a prosecutor malign a man who had already lost so much of his life to junk science. It reminded him too much of his own case.

Harward spent 34 years behind bars in Virginia after being wrongfully accused of rape and murder on the basis of bite-mark evidence. Now 65, with long white hair and a ZZ Top beard, he had 10-29-83, the date of his conviction, tattooed on his back. Under that was his exoneration date: 4-7-16.

Harward is blunt about the trauma inflicted by his wrongful conviction. “I have all kinds of issues,” he said. To this day, he does not keep glassware in his house. “We didn’t have it in prison,” he said. “I’m afraid of breaking it, getting cut.” And he remains haunted by a sense that his case is never far behind him. “Every day I get up, I’m still waiting for someone to come say, ‘Oh, we made a mistake.’”

“Every day I get up, I’m still waiting for someone to come say, ‘Oh, we made a mistake.’”

Harward’s fate might easily have been different. It was only because of the Innocence Project’s ability to secure new evidence testing in his case that DNA emerged pointing to the real perpetrator, which convinced the Virginia attorney general to support Harward’s exoneration. Like most people convicted of crimes based on junk science, McCrory did not have DNA evidence on his side.

Had the physical evidence in his case been preserved, McCrory might well have been able to clear his name. Several years ago, McCrory’s son, Chad, got access to the evidence room at the courthouse, where he recalled seeing a bag with fingernail clippings, as well as a nightgown, presumably the one his mother had been wearing when she was killed. Chad later told his father’s trial attorney Larry Grissett, who thought the materials might reveal DNA. But when Grissett visited the evidence room himself, the items were gone. Only the dental mold remained.

A few months after the evidentiary hearing, in July 2021, Lanier, the former Covington County DA, arrived at Grissett’s law office in downtown Opp, some 15 miles west of Andalusia. A buck’s head was mounted on the wall opposite a fireplace topped with family photos. Lanier had brought a box of freshly baked donuts, which he shared with his former adversary. Although they had been on opposite sides of McCrory’s trial in 1985, the lawyers agreed on at least one thing. No matter how the judge might rule now, “there are no winners,” Grissett said. “No, there are no winners,” Lanier said. “And the community lost — they lost a good man and, of course, a good woman.”

Now in his late 70s, Lanier wore sneakers and flip-up shades over his prescription eyeglasses. He’d lost reelection shortly after McCrory’s conviction, following a tenure marked by his own run-ins with the law. In 1987 Lanier was convicted of assaulting a state trooper who pulled him over for reckless driving. But the former DA’s record paled in comparison to that of Harvey Tipler, one of the private prosecutors who convicted McCrory. After being jailed in Florida on multiple charges, including racketeering and prostitution for soliciting sex from clients, Tipler was convicted in 2013 for trying to have a state prosecutor murdered. He’s currently serving 30 years in prison.

“I have a clear conscience,” Lanier said. It was the Tiplers who’d handled the bite-mark evidence, he added. Regardless, he said he still believed in McCrory’s guilt. But Grissett felt differently. All these decades later, he remained disturbed by the case. “I think about it a lot, and it worries me,” he said. Grissett doesn’t believe that Ainsworth, the Bullard employee who was convicted of rape, was the real killer. But he was adamant that there were alternate leads and suspects that remain unexplored.

Grissett remained indignant over Souviron’s role at trial. “Listen, not only was that junk science, but Dr. Souviron was untruthful,” he said. As Grissett recalled, he and his co-counsel, Marsal, had asked Souviron just before he testified whether he could truly claim definitively that the mark matched McCrory’s teeth. Souviron said no. But when he got on the stand moments later, Souviron essentially said the opposite. The trial transcript supports Grissett’s recollection. An agitated Marsal had confronted Souviron. “Did you not tell us during the break that you could not tell if these teeth marks were made by Charles McCrory?” he demanded. Souviron said he’d told them it was “not positive for Charles McCrory.” He could not exclude everyone else in the world. “We were shocked,” Grissett said.

On February 14, 2022, Judge Short finally handed down his ruling. It adopted verbatim the state’s proposed order, which argued that McCrory would have been convicted even without Souviron’s testimony. The ruling cited the eyewitness testimony from Meeks and his grandfather, along with McCrory’s questions about the “lick” on the back of Julie’s head. Perhaps most preposterously, the judge endorsed the argument that jurors at McCrory’s trial could have done their own bite-mark analysis. “The jury could have made the physical comparison between the injury to the victim’s arm and the mold of the defendant’s teeth on their own,” Short wrote.

Grissett was unsurprised by the ruling. “There was no way the judge was gonna grant this,” he said. “I mean, he’s a really good guy, he is. But he is really, really conservative.” In Alabama, judges are elected, he pointed out. “So, you know, they’re politicians also.”

Still, Grissett flatly rejected the notion that jurors would have convicted McCrory. “There was not enough evidence to find him guilty without Souviron. That’s the only evidence that directly connected him.” As for the idea that the jurors could do their own forensic analysis, let alone apply junk science, “it’s ludicrous,” he said.

Grissett is not alone in his opinion. Just a few weeks after the 2021 hearing, Loudon-Brown met with Harvey Tipler in prison. In a subsequent court filing, he wrote that in Tipler’s recollection, “the bite mark evidence ‘clearly was’ the reason for the conviction, and his father, Frank Tipler, thought so too.” Tipler also told Loudon-Brown that Jeter’s theory of the crime was not the one they presented at trial. For them, the bite mark was “key,” he said.

In a statement, Fabricant and Loudon-Brown called the decision “a tragic failure of law.” They will appeal to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals. “Almost 10 months after the evidentiary hearing at which all experts agreed the injury to the decedent was not a bite mark, the judge signed four pages of findings written by the prosecutors and denied a new trial,” they said. “This was despite the prosecution’s own expert recanting his trial testimony and admitting, in agreement with the entirety of the scientific community, that this kind of evidence has no place in the criminal courts.”

The post A Bogus Bite Mark Sent Him to Prison for Murder. Alabama Wants to Keep Him There. appeared first on The Intercept.

Left: A Bosnian child leaves his father on Nov. 11, 1992, in Sarajevo. Right: A man says goodbye to his son and his wife on a train to Lviv at the Kyiv station, Ukraine, on March 3, 2022.

Photos: Patrick Baz/Getty Images, Emilio Morenatti/AP

This sounds like Vladimir Putin in 2022, but it’s Slobodan Milošević in 1992, when military forces under the Serbian leader’s control went on a genocidal rampage in Bosnia. The war dragged on for years and involved sieges of Sarajevo and other cities, including Srebrenica. Milošević claimed Bosnia was an artificial country that didn’t deserve to exist — the kind of lie that Putin has deployed against Ukraine. Serbs shelled apartment buildings and attacked civilians as they tried to flee — just as the Russian army is now doing in Ukraine. You can look at a picture of Sarajevo in 1992 and a picture of Kyiv in 2022 and not know which is which.

There’s a lot of guessing about what Putin will be able to achieve in Ukraine and whether he’ll survive in power, now that his opening gambit has failed. But there has been surprisingly little reference to the precedent of Milošević and Bosnia. It’s as though what happened in Bosnia is not regarded as an authentic chapter of Europe’s history — because most of the war’s 100,000 victims were Muslim, and Muslims aren’t considered fully European. As the historian Edin Hajdarpašić noted last week: “If 1990s Bosnia is taught, it is in courses on genocide & violence, but rarely as part of European history courses.” It’s an omission that does more than reveal how prejudice tilts our choices about which history to highlight and which history to ignore; it deprives us of a greater understanding of what may lie ahead.

There are two sides to the lessons from Belgrade and Sarajevo. The first is that a leader who embarks on a violently nihilist path can remain in power far longer than you might expect. There is speculation about a possible coup in Moscow, but Milošević stayed in office throughout the war, which ended after four years, and wasn’t ousted until late in 2000 when he tried to rig an election that he lost. The second lesson is that an underdog fighting for survival can stave off, though with immense loss of life, a far larger force that lacks its motivation. The Bosnian Army was thrown together after the Serb onslaught began and persevered, despite an unconscionable arms embargo by the United Nations (imposed against all parties but hurting only the Bosnian side, because Serbs had plenty of weapons of their own).

It goes without saying — so of course I feel obliged to say it — that what happened a generation ago in the Balkans is not predictive of what will happen in Ukraine and Russia. The differences are considerable. In many ways, what we’re seeing in Ukraine is a speed-chess version of the wars in Bosnia, Chechnya, and Syria, with the pieces on the board now including nuclear weapons. But in addition to covering the war in Bosnia, I studied Russian at Leningrad State University back in the Soviet era and occasionally reported from the USSR during its collapse and afterward, including a brief stint in Ukraine when it became independent (a story I wrote in 1991 was headlined “Ukrainians Fear Border Disputes Could Bring Conflict With Russia”). What is happening today is uncanny, an old tune played in a new key with a faster tempo and higher stakes.

Staying in Power

What is Putin’s endgame?

Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia and prominent commentator on the war, has given voice to a consensus view. “Putin has no endgame,” he wrote last week. “Even if he takes Kyiv, then what? Ukrainians will never submit to him. Never.” It’s true that Ukrainians have amply demonstrated they will not give up, but in the context of the Milošević experience, McFaul’s assessment seems unimaginative.

Putin is a true believer in the idea of a greater Russia: He genuinely would like to return Russia to what he regards as its lost glory. Milošević’s embrace of Serbian nationalism was different. He was opportunistic from the start; nationalism was just a vehicle to take him to power and keep him there. With Kyiv demonstrating that it will not become Russia’s property, Putin is moving toward Milošević’s cynical position. As his army appears to move slowly, with large amounts of equipment abandoned and significant numbers of soldiers captured or killed, we’re already hearing less talk of national glory and territorial expansion. Staying in power — doing whatever is necessary to stay there — is the new endgame. The more clearly we understand that, the better we can understand what Putin’s tactics will be in the time ahead.

For context, let me take you back in time to the noisy dining room of the Serbian Parliament in Belgrade during the Milošević era. It was late in 1992, when the war and genocide in Bosnia were searingly hot. Serbia was a strange place. It wasn’t a full dictatorship; there were some independent media outlets. If you didn’t like Milošević, you could say so, within limits. The dining room was filled with political hacks and war criminals, as well as a handful of dejected reformers. One of them recognized me. He had been my interpreter a year earlier, but now he was a senior functionary in the federal Yugoslav government, a powerless entity that was nominally separate from Milošević’s Serbian government, where all power resided. Laszlo sat down at my table and laughed when I remarked that Milošević would not like the latest peace proposal because it wouldn’t give him the land he sought for a greater Serbia.

“Don’t ask what strategy is best for achieving a greater Serbia, or what strategy is best for the welfare of the Serbs,” Laszlo told me. “Ask what strategy will keep Milošević in power, and that’s the one he will follow. All of these things that he talks about, like nationalism and protecting Serbs, are just tools that he uses to stay in power. He doesn’t care about them at all. He doesn’t care about anyone at all. He cares only about staying in power.”

The pursuit of violence was the best strategy for staying in power.

The pursuit of violence was the best strategy for staying in power. War allowed Milošević to drape his regime in the national flag and blame everything — the sanctions and corruption and penury and hyperinflation — on the supposed threats Serbs faced from Bosnia’s Muslims and America’s imperialism. Those excuses eventually ran out of steam, but Milošević survived longer than expected by combining the rhetoric of national defiance with the cowardly violence of soldiers sitting in the hills and bombing civilians in the valleys below. Peace, when it finally came, was a tactic he used to maintain his rule. It was not his goal.

What does this tell us about Putin? It’s important to note, again, that it’s impossible for any of us to know what Putin will do or what’s going on in his head. But precedents are instructive.

Ben Judah, an Atlantic Council fellow who wrote a book about Putin, noted the other day that the structure of power in Russia is a “personalistic dictatorship.” Putin has been in charge for more than two decades and is surrounded by cowering “yes” men; just watch the videos of his meetings with his national security council, his generals, and top business executives. In a similar vein, when I interviewed Milošević in 1993, there was nobody else in his spacious office: no bodyguard, no note-taker, no media adviser. He ruled alone. The interests of men like Milošević and Putin come before all else. “He could either suddenly declare ‘the anti-terror operation was a success’ or escalate dramatically,” Judah wrote on Twitter, of Putin. “Depending on what he thinks is in it for him, he’s capable of ditching the offensive or ditching the entire economy as we’ve known it in massive escalation.”

The rationale for continued warfare is that it binds more Russians to Putin than would come from an acknowledgment of his blunder and withdrawal of his forces. Retreat, even if packaged as a victory by wringing a concession or two out of the Ukrainians, could wind up being a larger blow to his hold on power. The math could easily change, with Putin calculating that retreat would better serve his interests; this could happen anytime. But until then, the violence will carry on. The war crimes that horrify so many of us are unlikely to factor into his calculations, because he has done this before, in Chechnya as well as Syria, with no fallout at home. Witness, for instance, the news reports in which ordinary Russians deny their forces are bombing cities in Ukraine despite being shown evidence of it. Yes, these are early days, but denialism of this sort is not unusual years into wars and afterward too. It helps to remember that in the 1990s, only a small number of Serbs believed their forces in Bosnia were guilty of war crimes despite an inundation of proof. And they still feel that way. Despite an international tribunal ruling in multiple cases that Bosnian Serbs committed genocide, Serbia’s current president is none other than Alexander Vučić, a minister in Milošević’s last government.

A Ukrainian tank rolls along a road on March 8, 2022, in Ukraine.

AFP via Getty Images

Fighting for Weapons

There is good news for Ukraine from Bosnia, and it has to do with weapons.

The Bosnia war began after a majority of voters cast their ballots in favor of independence from Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. The United Nations had placed an arms embargo on Yugoslavia, using the rationale that more weapons would mean more fighting as the country broke up. In fact, the Serbs had plenty of weapons because they controlled the Yugoslav National Army and had open borders with the rest of the world to acquire whatever they did not already possess. The Bosnian government, on the other hand, had no weapons at the start and limited means to acquire them even illicitly, because it was mostly encircled by its Serb enemy and faced its off-and-on Croat allies elsewhere. The embargo meant only that the Serbs, who started the war, would never lose their advantage in armaments. At the end of one of my winter reporting trips to Sarajevo, I left my boots with my interpreter because his brother was on the snowy front lines in sneakers.

The Bosnian Army hung on and prevented Serb forces from overrunning Sarajevo and other chunks of the country that had not been conquered in the first months of the war, when the Serbs made most of their gains. This showed what can be achieved by a motivated army even if it is outmatched in firepower. Serb fighters were cowardly: At the war’s outset, they attacked towns that had no defenses, shooting people at will, and once the front lines were set, they squatted in the hills and shot at civilians from a distance. I visited Serb soldiers in their mountain bunkers; they were glad to kill but afraid to put their lives on the line. When they finally starved and broke Srebrenica in 1995, they executed more than 8,000 men and boys.

The parallel to Ukraine is startling, with a crucial difference.

Ukrainians are defending their homes and their independence. Russian soldiers do not really know what they are fighting for.

The Russian Army is massive compared to Ukraine’s, which is why Putin was so confident of prevailing in a matter of days, just as Milošević did not anticipate fighting for years in Bosnia (he had planned to quickly carve up Bosnia between Serbia and Croatia). But the Ukrainians, like the Bosnian forces, are defending their homes and their independence. Russian soldiers do not really know what they are fighting for; many were reportedly not even told they would be invading Ukraine. Just as lackluster Serb forces resorted to indiscriminate fire against civilian targets, the Russians are falling back on that dismal strategy in Ukraine.

But here is a key distinction: While the Bosnian Army was starved of weapons due to the U.N. embargo, Ukraine has been preparing for this war since Russia seized Crimea in 2014; it has been getting support in this effort from the U.S. and its NATO allies. More to the point, it is now on the receiving end of a massive infusion of weapons in the billions of dollars and apparently growing by the day. I don’t think interpreters in Kyiv are finding it necessary to solicit donations of winter boots for their front-line siblings.

It was a journalist from Bosnia who made this comparative point the other day. “Don’t underestimate Ukraine,” Melina Borčak wrote on Twitter. “Bosnia was independent, but didn’t have an army when it was attacked. … There was an arms embargo, so we couldn’t even buy a handful of guns. Everyone thought, we will bleed out fast. We resisted for 4 YEARS.”

The resistance came at a terrible cost. Not just the 100,000 deaths, but the physical and psychological scars that millions of survivors carry to this day, as well as internal borders that divide Bosnia still, thanks to a peace treaty, negotiated at a U.S. military base, that gave half the country to the genocidal Serbs. Let us hope, this time, that the U.S. and its allies conduct themselves in a manner that helps Ukraine arrive at a fairer and quicker endgame of its own.

The post Putin’s Endgame Is Not a Mystery. It’s Regime Survival. appeared first on The Intercept.

The CERAWeek conference took place this week in Houston. CERAWeek is an annual gathering of major players in the energy sector; CEOs, government officials, and financiers are among the conference’s attendees. The major theme this year, of course, was the effect of Russia’s war in Ukraine on global oil and gas markets — in particular, President Joe Biden’s announcement Tuesday that the U.S. would move to ban imports of Russian oil. The New Republic’s Kate Aronoff was there in Houston to witness the conference. She joins Ryan Grim to discuss what she saw and heard, including — yes, actually — a Broadway song parody titled “Don’t Cry for Me, Hydrocarbons.”

Transcript coming soon.

The post Don’t Cry for Me, Hydrocarbons appeared first on The Intercept.

Celso Daniel em campanha para prefeito de Santo André nos anos 1990.

Foto: Concessão/Globo Play

Em 2002, o ex-prefeito Celso Daniel, de Santo André, São Paulo, foi sequestrado e assassinado. Naquele mesmo ano, os irmãos do petista levantaram a hipótese de que o crime teria motivações políticas. Segundo a tese, a morte teria sido queima de arquivo, já que Celso Daniel teria conhecimento de um esquema de propinas envolvendo o PT e empresas de ônibus da cidade.

Mas todos os indícios e provas apontaram para um crime comum. A quadrilha que matou o prefeito foi presa pela Polícia Civil. Os integrantes já estavam na mira dos policiais como suspeitos de serem os responsáveis por uma onda de sequestros na região. Segundo a polícia, todos os casos seguiam o mesmo padrão: escolhiam-se vítimas em carros de luxo para fazer o chamado sequestro-relâmpago. Na maioria desses crimes, a vítima entregava o dinheiro e era liberada. Em outros, elas foram mortas como Celso Daniel. Com a confissão da quadrilha, a polícia então fechou o caso e concluiu ter sido um crime comum.

Os irmãos do prefeito não se conformaram com a conclusão do caso. Atendendo a um pedido deles, o Ministério Público reabriu a investigação ainda em 2002. Mesmo sem um mísero indício ou prova de crime político, a linha de investigação dos irmãos foi supervalorizada pelo MP e pela imprensa, deixando a opinião pública com muitas dúvidas.

Ela se baseava apenas no depoimento de um irmão de Celso Daniel, que disse ter ouvido do petista Gilberto Carvalho uma confissão de que entregava propinas para José Dirceu. À época, o tucano Nelson Jobim, então ministro da Justiça de FHC, rejeitou levar o processo adiante por absoluta falta de provas. Afirmou o ministro no despacho: “A prova com a qual o Ministério Público Federal quer desencadear um inquérito policial contra o senhor deputado José Dirceu não tem fundamento legal”.

De lá para cá, o caso teve muitas idas e vindas na Justiça, mas tudo seguia apontando na direção do crime comum. Só os irmãos do prefeito e o MP, alimentados pela imprensa, insistiam na tese de crime político. As suspeitas da motivação política foram exploradas pelos adversários políticos do PT em absolutamente todas as eleições nestes últimos 20 anos. Virou uma poderosa arma eleitoral.

A exploração da coisa foi longe. O caso foi parar na CPI dos Bingos sem ter nenhuma relação com os bingos e chegou até a ser investigado pela Lava Jato. Tudo isso faz com que até hoje o bolsonarismo mobilize suas guerrilhas virtuais para perguntar “Quem matou Celso Daniel?”.

Na última eleição presidencial, o candidato Alvaro Dias — aquele que foi poupado pela Lava Jato e hoje é aliado de Sergio Moro — pediu em um debate na Globo para Haddad entregar um bilhete para Lula. O conteúdo do bilhete foi revelado depois em suas redes sociais: “Quem mandou matar Celso Daniel? Você sabe!”

Agora, 20 anos depois, o Grupo Globo decidiu lançar uma série documental “O Caso Celso Daniel”, com  oito episódios, sobre o assassinato do petista. Apesar de colocar novamente o assunto em evidência em um ano de eleição, o documentário tem a pretensão de ser imparcial ao apresentar igualmente as versões de crime político e crime comum. Mas a imparcialidade ficou só na pretensão mesmo.

Apesar de não defender nenhuma tese, a série coloca a versão dos irmãos de Celso Daniel, sem nenhuma prova, baseada apenas em ilações colhidas aqui e acolá, em pé de igualdade com o que concluiu as profundas investigações da polícia – estas, sim, baseadas em provas e testemunhas. Ao longo dos episódios, a chama da dúvida da participação do PT no crime permanece acesa.

É bastante provável que um espectador menos atento termine o documentário achando que o PT é o mandante do crime, mesmo que os fatos que provam o contrário tenham sido escancarados ao longo dos episódios. A tentativa de se mostrar imparcial, dando a mesma credibilidade para todas as versões, tornou uma delas, a conspiratória, uma versão legítima.

Celso Daniel discursando em comício. Político era uma das estrelas do PT no início da década.

Foto: Concessão/Globo Play

Apesar de afirmar que o documentário é isento, Joana Henning, produtora responsável, já tentou emplacar um documentário crítico a Lula. Segundo uma reportagem do UOL, Henning tentou arrecadar R$ 2 5 milhões de crowdfunding para fazer o documentário, mas não chegou perto disso e o projeto foi engavetado. O roteirista que havia sido escalado para esse projeto foi Guilherme Fiúza, um jornalista que defende Bolsonaro com unhas e dentes e hoje faz pregação antivacina no noticiário. Já o narrador do documentário seria Marcelo Madureira, um humorista famoso pelo antipetismo ferrenho.

Em 2016, o tucano Sérgio Sá Leitão, que foi ministro da Cultura de Temer e hoje é secretário de Cultura do governo Doria, se tornou sócio de Henning no estúdio que comandaria o projeto e ajudou Fiúza a escrever o roteiro. A produtora se cercou de antipetistas para fazer um documentário para bater em Lula. Após ver esse projeto ir por água abaixo por falta de dinheiro, Henning agora consegue lançar o documentário sobre o Celso Daniel junto com a Globo. Há que ser muito ingênuo para acreditar que esse notório viés antipetista da produtora — e do grupo Globo — não tenha contaminado o documentário de Celso Daniel.

‘A tentativa de se mostrar imparcial, dando a mesma credibilidade para todas as versões, tornou uma delas, a conspiratória, uma versão legítima.’

Antes do lançamento do documentário, três jornalistas da Globo, ouvidos pelo UOL sob anonimato, garantiram não ser possível “ressuscitar o tema sob o ponto de vista do interesse jornalístico”, já que o crime foi esclarecido pela polícia e pelo Judiciário. Para eles, a série “irá apenas resgatar teorias conspiratórias”. Um desses jornalistas disse que “a sensação é que a emissora quer encontrar um jeito de barrar o candidato do PT nas eleições, Lula”.

Apesar disso, o documentário não é para se jogar fora por inteiro. Os depoimentos de Marcelo Godoy, jornalista do Estadão que acompanhou de perto o caso à época, não deixam dúvidas de que tudo o que foi investigado acabou apontando para crime comum. “Eu nunca vi um caso ter sido investigado como esse caso foi. O inquérito foi aberto mais de uma vez. O inquérito foi refeito por mais de um delegado”.

Em 2005, quando o MP reabriu o inquérito mais uma vez a pedido da família de Celso Daniel, os promotores indicaram uma nova delegada para cuidar do caso, Elisabete Sato. O jornalista a entrevistou no dia em que foi nomeada para retomar a investigação: “Ela disse pra mim ‘É um crime político’. Ela tinha convicção de que era um crime político.” A delegada, então, fez uma nova apuração durante um ano inteiro. Além de ouvir dezenas de testemunhas, Sato ouviu também os sete sequestradores, que negaram a existência de um mandante ou de motivação política.

Gravações da série que conta com 8 episódios.

Foto: Concessão/Globo Play

Ao fim do inquérito, mesmo tendo começado a investigação com a convicção de que foi crime político, a delegada chegou à mesma conclusão da primeira investigação feita em 2002: crime comum. No despacho, a delegada afirmou que “a voracidade do Gaeco de Santo André [órgão ligado ao Ministério Público] sucumbiu diante da falta de provas”.

Mas nem assim o assunto saiu do noticiário. Os irmãos de Celso Daniel passaram a cogitar a hipótese da delegada ter sofrido ameaças, mesmo não havendo o mísero indício disso. Mesmo com o DHPP, o DEIC e a Polícia Federal apontando para um crime comum, a dúvida sobre o envolvimento do PT no caso segue viva no imaginário do povo brasileiro. Claro, a tese inicial do MP foi comprada com unhas e dentes pela imprensa. Não poderia ser diferente depois de duas décadas de noticiário martelando essa dúvida na cabeça da população.

Ao fim do documentário, a senadora tucana Mara Gabrilli afirma achar que o mandante do crime “foi o trio: Lula, José Dirceu e Gilberto Carvalho”. FHC, adversário político de Lula e presidente à época do crime, aparece afirmando não haver nada que indique alguma motivação política. E assim a obra deixa para o espectador livre para acreditar em alguma das teses, mesmo que uma delas seja absolutamente fantasiosa.

O crime comum foi fartamente comprovado, apesar das interrogações que a série joga a todo tempo: 1) o MP tentou a todo custo forçar a tese de crime político, mesmo sem indícios; 2) o amigo e segurança de Celso Daniel, Sérgio Gomes da Silva, conhecido como Sombra, acusado de participar do crime, foi inocentado após ser tratado como assassino pelo noticiário e pelo MP; 3) a grande imprensa, embriagada de antipetismo, alimentou a conspiração e atuou como porta-voz da tese do MP.

O documentário atinge um público que já vem com o olhar viciado pela cobertura desastrosa da imprensa nos últimos 20 anos. Neste contexto, apresentar todas as versões com a mesma credibilidade não torna o documentário imparcial. Pelo contrário, ajuda a manter no ar as teorias fantasiosas em ano eleitoral.

The post Imparcialidade da série ‘O caso Celso Daniel’ da Globo não para de pé appeared first on The Intercept.

“Russia, despite its military challenges with the invasion, still has a preponderance of conventional forces,” Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told The Intercept. “Their formal military doctrine only allows for the potential use of nuclear weapons in two major circumstances: one in which Russia is attacked by a country like the United States with long-range strategic nuclear weapons, which would lead them to retaliate, or if there’s a military conflict that puts at risk the Russian state itself. Now, this conflict, while gruesome and brutal to the Ukrainians, does not represent a threat to the Russian state.”

But the risk is certainly greater than it was before the invasion, and the longer the war carries on, the more willing Putin may be to deviate from Russia’s standard operating procedure, Kimball said. A prolonged conflict, especially if Putin decides to use more destructive weapons and engage in reckless acts, like damaging the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, also carries the risk of drawing NATO in further, resulting in a broader European conflict in which Putin may come to fear a greater threat to Russia.

“It is hard to imagine a scenario that Putin would use a [nuclear] weapon in Ukraine unless he felt that he was losing and that the [loss] could result in his losing power (and possibly his life),” nuclear expert and Quincy Institute fellow Joe Cirincione wrote to The Intercept. “The possibility of losing the war rises dramatically if the US and NATO were to engage.”

Under President Joe Biden, the United States has tried to draw a fine line to avoid a full-blown war: The administration is currently supporting the Ukrainian resistance with light weapons like anti-tank Javelin missiles but rejecting dangerous calls to establish a no-fly zone, which would mean direct conflict with Russia, and requests to route Polish fighter jets to Ukraine through a NATO military base in Germany. But crucially, neither Russia nor the United States governs its nuclear arsenal with a no-first-use policy, which would take these weapons off the table in a conventional conflict.

According to Cirincione, much of the problem stems from Russia and the U.S. viewing nuclear weapons as “an extension” of conventional arms, meaning that they’re another type of munition that could be used on a battlefield. The outlook is made worse by both countries’ increased reliance on so-called low-yield munitions in their military strategies.

“Any nuclear weapon, regardless of yield, would have devastating humanitarian and environmental consequences and risk escalation to a ‘full-blown’ nuclear war.”

The term “low-yield” is a misnomer: This class of extremely destructive arms includes the 15- and 21-kiloton bombs that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of people either in the immediate impact or over the months of radiation sickness that ensued. But it does help distinguish those nuclear weapons from the most powerful, doomsday-style weapons like intercontinental ballistic missiles or the U.S.’s 1.2-megaton B83 gravity bomb. For reference, the U.S.’s smallest nuclear weapon, the B61 gravity bomb, has a 0.3-kiloton setting, the same amount of power as the 2020 ammonium nitrate explosion in Beirut that killed more than 200 people.

If Russia were to use a nuclear weapon in the event of a wider conflict with NATO, it’s widely assumed that Putin would start with a low-yield munition. Russia has an estimated 1,900 such weapons that rely on a variety of delivery methods — by air, ground, and sea. But there’s no guarantee that it would stop there.

“Any nuclear weapon, regardless of yield, would have devastating humanitarian and environmental consequences and risk escalation to a ‘full-blown’ nuclear war,” Monica Montgomery, a research analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, told The Intercept.

Despite the dangers, some analysts believe that the U.S. should prepare its forces as if a limited nuclear war were winnable. The idea led former President Donald Trump to put the U.S. on a course to develop more low-yield nuclear weapons. The U.S. already had about 1,000 of these types of munitions.

“Expanding flexible U.S. nuclear options now, to include low-yield options, is important for the preservation of credible deterrence against regional aggression. It will raise the nuclear threshold and help ensure that potential adversaries perceive no possible advantage in limited nuclear escalation, making nuclear employment less likely,” Trump’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review said, refuting concerns laid out by arms control advocates, who argue that the weapons’ smaller explosive power risks making their use more likely.

The review, a document each president since Bill Clinton has released to publicly declare their nuclear weapons strategy, also claimed that Russia is increasing its nonstrategic arms, referring to munitions with lower yields and shorter ranges that could be used in a nonnuclear conflict. Hans Kristensen at the Federation of American Scientists described this claim as “exaggerated” in a 2019 article for Forbes, arguing that Russia has actually been reducing its total numbers.

Nevertheless, the previous White House followed through on its plans by seeking a brand new nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missile and placing a low-yield warhead on some submarine-launched ballistic missiles. (It also decided to keep around the 1.2-megaton B83 gravity bomb, the largest in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which the Obama administration had wanted to retire.)

Biden was slated to release his own Nuclear Posture Review early this year, though that has likely been delayed as a result of the war in Ukraine. Disarmament advocates hope that the president, who said on the campaign trail that the U.S. “does not need new nuclear weapons,” will reverse Trump’s course. But pressure to maintain the status quo is likely to grow now.

“If President Biden sheds or does away in any way with nuclear capabilities as has been reported, I predict bipartisan opposition in the House and Senate that will override it and continue to fund these systems,” Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., ranking member of the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, said during a March 1 hearing on U.S. nuclear forces. In addition to Russia, he warned about nuclear militarization by China and North Korea.

“It’s going to be the same old, same old,” Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., a member of the panel, told The Intercept. “The Republicans on the Armed Services Committee and probably just generally cannot ever have enough nuclear weapons.”

By expanding the U.S. arsenal of low-yield nuclear weapons, the Trump administration forced arms control advocates to shift their focus. Years ago, Senate Democrats actively campaigned against a missile called the Long-Range Standoff weapon, intended to replace the U.S.’s aging air-launched cruise missile and its warhead, which has a range of yield settings, including a low-yield option. When asked by The Intercept about his stance on this category of weapons and his past opposition to the replacement, Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., instead called out the sea-launched weapons started under Trump: “It’s not only a waste of money, it’s destabilizing.”

Montgomery, of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, described the jockeying for priorities in the nuclear arms control arena as a battle for attention. The W76 warhead, “because of its uniquely destabilizing position on our strategic nuclear submarines, and the [sea-launched cruise missile] because of the lines that it blurs between conventional and nuclear use,” she said, “were chosen as higher priorities and also most likely to be able to oppose.”

While the public awaits Biden’s decisions on his nuclear arms policies, including whether to adopt a no-first-use stance, the dangers of nuclear weapons abound, even outside the context of Ukraine. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that North Korea recently tested components of a new intercontinental ballistic missile system, and nuclear-armed India said Friday that it accidentally fired a missile into neighboring Pakistan.

“Over the past decade, both Russia and the US have gone back to doctrines developed in the 1950’s that envision fighting with low-yield nuclear weapon[s] on the battlefield,” Cirincione wrote to The Intercept. “Once again, both countries are developing and fielding weapons they believe are ‘more usable,’ that would convince political leaders that they could cross the nuclear threshold and not risk escalation to global thermonuclear war. This is a dangerous illusion.”

The post How Does a Conventional War Become Nuclear? appeared first on The Intercept.

In December, the CIA issued classified reports concluding that Putin hadn’t yet committed to an invasion, according to the current and former officials. In January, even as the Russian military was starting to take the logistical steps necessary to move its troops into Ukraine, U.S. intelligence again issued classified reporting maintaining that Putin had still not resolved to actually launch an attack, the officials said. “The CIA was saying through January that Putin had not made a decision to invade, but he was putting in place pieces for an invasion,” said a senior U.S. intelligence official, who asked not to be identified in order to discuss sensitive matters. “I think Putin was still keeping his options open.”

It wasn’t until February that the agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community became convinced that Putin would invade, the senior official added. With few other options available at the last minute to try to stop Putin, President Joe Biden took the unusual step of making the intelligence public, in what amounted to a form of information warfare against the Russian leader. He also warned that Putin was planning to try to fabricate a pretext for invasion, including by making false claims that Ukrainian forces had attacked civilians in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, which is controlled by pro-Russian separatists. The preemptive use of intelligence by Biden revealed “a new understanding … that the information space may be among the most consequential terrain Putin is contesting,” observed Jessica Brandt of the Brookings Institution.

Biden’s warning on February 18 that the invasion would happen within the week turned out to be accurate. In the early hours of February 24, Russian troops moved south into Ukraine from Belarus and across Russia’s borders into Kharkiv, the Donbas region, and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

The intelligence community’s assessment that Putin waited until almost the last minute to decide to start a war with Ukraine, which has not been previously reported, is significant because it could help explain how ill-prepared and uncoordinated the Russian military has appeared since it invaded. There have been widespread reports that Putin kept many Russian leaders out of the loop, that they were stunned by his decision to attack, and that the Russian government was not fully ready for war. “I was shocked because for a long time, I thought that a military operation was not feasible. It was not plausible,” Andrey Kortunov, a member of a Kremlin panel of foreign policy advisers, told Britain’s Sky News on March 2. Kortunov said that he and other foreign policy advisers had been sidelined by Putin.

The Russian president has instead surrounded himself with a small circle of like-minded military and intelligence officials who do his bidding. This has prompted outside experts to describe the current Russian government as being run by the siloviki, a small cadre of senior people with security, intelligence, and military backgrounds. It means that an increasingly isolated Putin made the decision to invade largely by himself. But that isolation makes it difficult to control a sprawling enterprise like a major war.

It’s possible that Putin made his decision earlier than U.S. intelligence concluded that he did. Current intelligence officials who described the CIA’s reporting on Putin’s intentions refused to identify the specific intelligence the agency used to determine when he decided to invade, making it difficult to judge the quality of the assessments. For example, whether U.S. intelligence was able to determine Putin’s plans because it gained access to his personal communications — thus giving the U.S. real-time information about his thinking — remains a closely guarded secret.

The Russian president has surrounded himself with a small circle of like-minded military and intelligence officials who do his bidding.

Several former intelligence officials said they doubt that the U.S. has access to Putin’s personal communications and instead believe it is more likely that the U.S. relied in part on intercepted communications among others in the Russian government and military. As Putin issued orders, increasing numbers of government and military officials had to be notified, and those officials then had to notify others around them. As a result, the Russian president’s plans for such a large-scale invasion couldn’t remain secret for long.

While Putin’s intentions were difficult for U.S. intelligence to determine, the Russian military’s troop buildup along the border with Ukraine was much easier to monitor. Over the past year, in fact, Russia did little to conceal its huge military deployments along the border with Ukraine. Last April, U.S. intelligence first detected that the Russian military was beginning to move large numbers of troops and equipment to the Ukrainian border. Most of the Russian soldiers deployed to the border at that time were later moved back to their bases, but U.S. intelligence determined that some of the troops and materiel remained near the border, the current and former intelligence officials said. The intelligence community realized that by only withdrawing part of its forces, Russia was making it easier to mount a quick mobilization later.

In June 2021, against the backdrop of rising tensions over Ukraine, Biden and Putin met at a summit in Geneva. The summer troop withdrawal brought a brief period of calm, but the crisis began to build again in October and November, when U.S. intelligence watched as Russia once again moved large numbers of troops back to its border with Ukraine. Pentagon analysts began to warn that the scale and costs of the deployment were much larger than would be required if Putin were bluffing, said current and former officials familiar with the intelligence.

As U.S. intelligence monitored the Russian troop buildup, there was some concern among officials handling Russian operations inside the CIA about how aggressively they were being allowed to conduct spy operations against Moscow. Early in 2021, some officials involved in Russian operations inside the CIA said that they were facing at least a temporary pause on a series of sensitive covert operations related to Russia, according to a former U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge of discussions among the officials involved in Russian operations. The former official said that William Burns, Biden’s CIA director, was seeking to temporarily halt some high-risk and potentially provocative operations to give the new administration a chance to try to reset relations with Putin after the weird and controversial relationship between Putin and Donald Trump. The former U.S. president had been investigated for his ties to Russia, and his relationship with Putin often seemed submissive, poisoning every aspect of U.S.-Russian relations.

The Biden administration “wanted to see if they could avoid kicking over a hornet’s nest called Russia.”

“There was a deep desire for a stable and predictable relationship with Russia,” the former senior CIA official told The Intercept. The Biden administration “wanted to see if they could avoid kicking over a hornet’s nest called Russia.”

A CIA spokesperson denied that there were any restrictions imposed on operations against Russia, calling the idea that Burns had sought to limit high-risk spy missions to give Biden a chance to reset relations with Putin categorically false.

Senior intelligence officials said that the only real shift in Russian operations was to increase the agency’s focus on intelligence related to Ukraine instead of pursuing other Russia-related targets. In the first few months of the Biden administration, U.S. intelligence officials began working more closely with Ukrainian intelligence to help the country prepare for a possible Russian invasion, the senior agency official said.

As the intelligence began to show the Russian escalation along the Ukrainian border, top CIA officials became increasingly focused on Ukraine long before it burst into the headlines as a global crisis. “I saw Burns in December, and he was really agitated by the Russian buildup,” said the former senior intelligence official.

Yet for several critical weeks last fall, senior policymakers in the Biden administration remained deeply split over how best to respond. At that time, the administration was reluctant to dramatically and immediately increase arms shipments to Ukraine.

Alexander Vindman, the former Army officer who handled Ukraine policy at the National Security Council and who became a whistleblower in Trump’s impeachment over the Ukraine scandal, says that Trump was largely responsible for delaying arms shipments to the country. Vindman said in an interview that the toxic politics surrounding Trump’s handling of Ukraine continued to make officials in the Biden administration wary of how aggressively to handle Ukraine policy last year.

In 2019, Trump froze military aide to Ukraine to try to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to investigate Biden, then a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination. Trump was impeached by the House for his attempt to pressure a foreign leader to meddle in a U.S. election but was later acquitted in the Senate. “Trump’s freeze on arms transfers made Ukraine toxic for the remainder of the Trump years, and I think Biden saw it as a toxic issue too,” Vindman said. “We lost three years’” worth of aid to Ukraine because of Trump’s efforts to intimidate Zelenskyy, he added. (Vindman testified before Congress during the impeachment; he was subsequently forced out of his job at the White House and later retired from the Army, saying that his chain of command did not shield him from pressure from the Trump administration.)

By February, however, as the U.S. intelligence community issued specific warnings that an invasion was imminent, the period of indecision among Biden administration policymakers came to an end. Since the invasion, the U.S. and its NATO allies have poured arms into Ukraine to help the nation defend itself. But Biden has imposed limits, and this week he rejected a Polish proposal to transfer fighter jets to Ukraine.

A senior U.S. intelligence official said that Putin has been surprised and disappointed by the Russian army’s problems so far and by the strength of the Ukrainian resistance. A U.S. intelligence official told Congress this week that as many as 4,000 Russian soldiers have been killed since the invasion began.

The senior intelligence official said that the Ukrainian intelligence service, which worked with the CIA to prepare for the invasion, has performed well since the Russian attack, but did not provide any details.

“Clearly Putin’s expectation was that this would be a much easier enterprise than it is,” the senior U.S. intelligence official said.

The post U.S. Intelligence Says Putin Made a Last-Minute Decision to Invade Ukraine appeared first on The Intercept.

Those documents have shown that in its efforts to head off and prepare for a pandemic, EcoHealth Alliance oversaw an experiment in which researchers intentionally made coronaviruses more pathogenic and transmissible. One grant report contained evidence that the research group also did an experiment with infectious clones of MERS, another deadly virus. While none of the experiments described in the grant materials released so far could have sparked the current pandemic, the documents raise serious questions about biosafety and oversight at NIH. Early in the grant, research on certain coronaviruses was subject to a U.S. government ban, but notes on communications between NIH staffers and EcoHealth Alliance obtained by The Intercept showed that the federal agency allowed Daszak to take the lead in shaping a plan to evade that moratorium.

Meanwhile, a grant proposal published by the internet research group DRASTIC last September showed that in 2018 EcoHealth Alliance applied for funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, to look for novel furin cleavage sites in bat coronaviruses. According to the proposal, which was not funded, EcoHealth planned to insert furin cleavage sites into the spikes of SARS-related viruses — an idea that drew attention because scientists had already noted that such a site is unique in the subclass of viruses to which SARS-CoV-2 belongs.

The Intercept repeatedly sought comment from EcoHealth Alliance on these revelations. EcoHealth initially responded. In September 2021, a spokesperson denied that the organization had conducted the research on the deadly MERS virus that was described in the NIH proposal. After documents obtained via FOIA later showed that such research had in fact been done, Daszak stated that the spokesperson had been misinformed. EcoHealth Alliance then stopped responding to The Intercept’s questions. In late February, Daszak replied to email inquiries and offered to talk. He spoke with us on March 1. In a wide-ranging interview conducted over Zoom, he addressed questions that have swirled around EcoHealth Alliance for the past two years, defended his organization against what he characterized as unjust accusations, and railed against the questioning he has faced from congressional Republicans, the NIH, and news organizations, including The Intercept.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Responding to the Outbreak

We’re curious when you first heard about the outbreak in Wuhan.

If you look at my Twitter account, you’ll see a tweet on New Year’s Eve of 2019 —

But before the tweet, what was the moment when you first learned about it?

It was a couple of days before that. We heard from our contacts in China that something was going on, that there were cases of a disease in Wuhan. I think it was December 30. We looked on Chinese social media and found the rumors about it there. But we heard from many scientists in China.

Many of the virologists and other scientists we speak to say that we don’t have enough information to determine whether Covid-19 emerged from natural spillover or as a result of research. Do you agree with that?

Do I agree that it’s possible that Covid-19 emerged through a lab leak? Of course. It’s been widely reported that we shut down discussion on that. But in the WHO report, which I was part of — and in fact I led the animal environmental side for the WHO side — we state that it’s extremely unlikely. We don’t state that it’s impossible it came from the lab. Of course it’s possible.

One of the many reasons that the origin of Covid-19 became such a sensitive and divisive issue was the sense, based on your communications about the Lancet letter, that you orchestrated a response among scientists and then made an effort to distance yourself from that effort. Do you want to say anything about that episode?

You said, “One of the reasons why this has become so divisive is because of the Lancet thing.” You could say that about many things. It’s because we didn’t release the DARPA proposal. It’s because we didn’t release our emails. It’s because, early on, we said very strongly that this came from nature, and that this lab leak stuff is preposterous. The real reason this has become so divisive is because it’s being used politically. That’s it.

Scientists disagree over an issue where there’s no definitive proof. And for this issue, there’s no definitive proof. And there may never be. But what we do know is the weight of evidence points strongly to emergence from farmed wildlife in China.

Since the WHO report even, there are something like 12 scientific papers that have been published or put up online from good scientists pointing towards that origin. And I’ve looked at every single document that’s come out of the folks who are trying to show it came out of the lab, and there is no evidence yet for that. It’s all about implied motives, databases that were taken offline, people that aren’t on a website, or innuendo around something. Any one of those things can be explained by the normal process of doing science.

An aerial view of the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China’s central Hubei province on April 17, 2020.

Photo illustration: Soohee Cho for The Intercept; Getty Images

Controversial Research

Did EcoHealth Alliance or the Wuhan Institute of Virology, through its partnership with EcoHealth Alliance, ever insert a furin cleavage site into a bat coronavirus genetic sequence?

Of course we did not do that. I really don’t understand how that could be a question at this point — it’s beyond the pale. That’s not in our plans and it’s not any of our reports, so of course we didn’t do that.

But isn’t it the case that you submitted a grant proposal to DARPA to do so?

We did submit a proposal to DARPA. I’ve not checked through the one that’s online that it’s the correct document. What I do know is it was widely reported that DARPA rejected that because there were concerns about safety issues. That is absolutely untrue. The document that allegedly is DARPA’s response, their review of our proposal, I’ve never seen that before. It was never sent to us. I don’t know if it’s real.

DARPA had a process by which people who didn’t get funded could do an interview with them to find out why they didn’t get funded. So I did that. Never once did they mention any concerns or issues around safety; never once did they mention gain-of-function. The reason they told us it was rejected was because the amount we asked for was too much for them. They couldn’t afford it. They actually encouraged us to resubmit in different ways. We then had protracted conversations with them about funding specific parts of it. They liked the proposal.

Was any of the work described in that proposal completed prior to its submission? We were told by multiple sources that when you submit a grant, that at least some of the work would have been done.

When you write a grant proposal and propose to do a new line of research, which is what we did, we would not be doing that research before we submit the proposal. That’s not how it works.

When we asked if you had ever inserted a furin cleavage site to a coronavirus, you responded with outrage. But that is what was described in the DARPA proposal.

No. What you said is, did we insert a furin cleavage site? And what I said was, of course not! If we had done that work with the Wuhan Institute of Virology, it would have been published by now. It would have been made public in our reports to the NIH. The DARPA proposal was not funded. Therefore, the work was not done. Simple.

But you acknowledge that you proposed to DARPA to insert a furin cleavage site?

I refute that that was the goal of the DARPA proposal. The idea was not to insert a furin cleavage site in a virus to see what happens. That’s not what was proposed. The proposal was to look for those polybasic cleavage sites in nature because we knew that that was the potential to make a virus more able to infect people and move from person to person. If we found mutations around that polybasic cleavage site that looked like it could be evolvable, the idea was then that Ralph Baric’s lab at UNC would do some work to see how evolvable that site was. So that work never happened. The proposal was not funded.

Did you find any of these cleavage sites in naturally occurring viruses that you collected?

The proposal was not funded so we didn’t do that work. We’ve not found polybasic cleavage sites. However, they are in many coronaviruses from bats. Papers from Europe show mutations around that cleavage site that suggest strongly that that furin cleavage site could evolve very easily in nature. I’m sure there are viruses out there with it. I’m convinced that it could have easily evolved during the first stages of the pandemic, as the virus got from bats, perhaps into an intermediate host in a wildlife farm, or into people.

Did you resubmit the proposal?

We had conversations with them over many months about bits they would like to fund or they wanted to fund. We did not get funded. We did not do the work.

So you didn’t think the DARPA proposal was relevant to the investigation into the origin of the pandemic?

A proposal that was not funded and work that was never done is not relevant to the origins of Covid. Of course not!

When asked if you had done this work with the furin cleavage site, you said no.

For the furin cleavage site, you should really ask Ralph Baric. He wrote that section of the DARPA grant.

So you’re saying that that would be a good question for Ralph Baric, whether he has done any of these insertions?

I don’t know what Ralph Baric has done. But I doubt that he would go ahead and do that work without the funding.

Some virologists were dismayed to see the insertion of furin cleavage sites in this proposal.

I don’t know why anyone would be dismayed at that because furin cleavage sites were first researched in influenza viruses. And it’s well known that that’s something you should look for if you’re interested in virulence factors. Second, there’s actually a published paper from way before our proposal was submitted, way before the pandemic, where a group actually inserted a furin cleavage site into SARS-CoV-1. So we were right to look for that. And I think the proposal stands as a valid and actually quite predictive effort to understand the risk of viruses. You’ve got to look at the big picture of why we do this research. We’re not doing it as a sort of academic interest, “what would happen if you put a cleavage site there?” No. This work is done to say: What viruses are there out there in the wild that have the potential to emerge in people? And can we do something to stop them? Develop vaccines, develop therapies, stop people making contact with those animals.

Your grant, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence,” included an experiment using humanized mice. Were other humanized mouse experiments conducted by you and/or WIV?

Not by us, no.

What about by WIV?

Well, you need to talk to WIV about what else they were doing. We were doing one line of work with them.

Were you aware of any?

No, of course. I’d tell you if I was aware.

Were there viruses from elsewhere in Southeast Asia that were sent to the WIV?

No. This is a commonly put about story that’s simply not true. WIV did not receive viruses from all around the world.

How many actual viruses do they have?

WIV does not have the biggest collection of viruses from bats in the world. There’s 20,000 bat samples, something like that, tiny fecal pellets from bats.

Right now I don’t know exactly how many bat coronaviruses are in culture and freezers at the WIV. But from our work, I know that out of the SARS-related coronavirus, they were only ever able to culture a handful. I think three cultures. It’s not easy to do.

In November 2019, you tweeted that you had identified over 50 novel SARS-related coronaviruses, including some that cause SARS-like signs in mice and didn’t respond to monoclonal antibodies.

Yes.

What are these 50 viruses? And are they public?

This is a complex thing that’s been widely misinterpreted. It’s actually quite simple. What we had were hundreds of genetic sequences of coronaviruses from bats. We published them in that paper. They’re not all new viruses. As we went through the sequence data and analyzed it, we refined what you might call a new virus versus a known virus. That’s all. It’s scientists refining and analyzing.

One ongoing point of contention between you and NIH is about lab notebooks and the communications around experiments.

NIH has made a bunch of requests that are completely reasonable, that we’ve dealt with very quickly and sent them the information that they required. And in many cases, NIH had the information already. What’s happening here is you’ve got an office of the director that’s dealing directly with us and completely cutting out the program staff who’ve got all the data they need. NIH has also asked us for a number of things which to any balanced and independent reviewer are impossible for us to supply.

Clearly in coming up with Year 4 and 5 progress reports, EcoHealth Alliance had information and draft reports on these humanized mouse experiments. Did you share those with NIH?

Of course not. You don’t share draft reports. You share the final report.

Here’s what happens, it’s a very standard procedure: We are subcontracting to a lab in China to do some work. Every year we have to file a report to NIH to tell them what we’ve done for the year, how we’ve spent the money, and whether we’ve achieved the goals of the grant. So, we contact our subcontractees and we say, “Send us the information. Let us know what successes you’ve had this year and whether you’ve had problems and issues. Put it all in a report and send it to us.” And then we use that to produce a report for NIH. That’s why there are some editing issues around that. We move them around a bit, and we send a final report. A draft report is just a worse written version of the final report. There’s no special information that’s got intelligence value or anything.

Then why not share them?

We’ve not been asked for a draft report by anybody.

You’ve been colleagues with Shi Zhengli, the Chinese bat coronavirus expert who directs the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, since 2005?

Yes.

So is it the kind of relationship where you would be generally aware of all the work that she was involved in? Can you say a little bit about what your level of awareness of other stuff she was doing?

We were aware of most of the stuff she was doing. Of course. These people weren’t hiding anything from us. They are scientists.

I’ve sat through dozens of meetings with people from Wuhan Institute of Virology, where they talk openly about unpublished work. And, by the way, RaTG13 was one of the sequences in a paper published — in I think 2015. So they weren’t hiding anything from us.

Early on, after she learned about the outbreak, Shi said she was worried that somehow a virus might have leaked from her lab. A lot of people we speak to — virologists who do this kind of work — are the ones who seem most in touch with that possibility, that this stuff happens.

Very specifically, it happens when you have cultures of viruses in flasks, and you’re then doing experiments with high concentrations of virus. It rarely happens if ever from an animal sample, especially a saliva sample from a bat. What Shi Zhengli was saying at that time was, “Oh, no, it’s a coronavirus. I need to go back and check on those viruses that we’ve got and see: Is it one of them?” And she did, and it wasn’t. That’s what any reasonable person would do.

You implied in early 2020 that RaTG13 was not fully sequenced by WIV until late 2019 or later. And then afterwards, Shi revealed that it had actually been fully sequenced in 2018. When and how did you first learn about the true date that this virus was sequenced?

I don’t actually know the true date of when this virus was sequenced. I didn’t see an interview with Zhengli where she said, “We sequenced it in 2018.” I don’t know when and I don’t think they ever got the full genome. There are parts of that virus that aren’t correctly sequenced. Bear in mind, RaTG13 was not from a sample collected under the NIH grant. So we didn’t have any oversight on that or any knowledge of it.

A colony of bats in a cave in the Maramagambo forest of Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.

Photo illustration: Soohee Cho for The Intercept; Getty Images

Missing Data

Did you have access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s database of viral samples and sequences that went offline in September 2019?

I’ve never actually seen the database. I’ve seen pages of it from the internet, Twitter, chats. But I’ve never looked at the database.

Did your staff have access to it?

No. We didn’t need to! We had all the data we needed. Some folks find this missing database indicative of a cover-up or something. When we were in Wuhan [with the WHO mission] in the Institute of Virology, I said, “Why did you take the database offline?” And their response was, “We took it offline before the outbreak. We were then getting hacking attempts, hundreds, thousands of hacking attempts. So we decided it wouldn’t be wise to put it back up.” Now, you may not believe them. But it is a perfectly reasonable explanation. And I think people should try and go for the most likely reasonable explanation for these things.

So why did they take it offline in September 2019?

They told us — and it’s in the WHO report — that they were trying to update it to make it modern. WIV was trying to present itself like a globally significant virology institute, and it is. But when you look at Chinese websites, they can be really old and stuffy and clunky. What they were trying to do, they told us, was to make it interactive so that you can click on something and a map would show. They were trying to make it fit in with the national databases.

I find it quite ironic that the focus on the database of WIV is so intense, whereas what actually happened was we took the data and, with China, put the data into the NIH’s own database to make it public. That’s a great win for the U.S.

In April 2020, you wrote in an email, “It’s extremely important that we don’t have these sequences as part of our PREDICT release to Genbank at this point. As you may have heard, these were part of a grant just terminated by NIH. … Having them as part of PREDICT will being [sic] very unwelcome attention to UC Davis, PREDICT and USAID.” Why did you think that publishing these sequences would bring unwelcome attention?

Because we just had our grant terminated by NIH.

So you didn’t think it would be important to release this data, given that there was a pandemic?

Those sequences were released publicly by publishing them in a scientific paper, which is what scientists do. The email that you’re reading out is not about whether sequences should be made public; it’s about whether sequences should be made public via a USAID mechanism or via publishing through the NIH mechanism. And what I was saying to the UC Davis team that ran PREDICT was that these are NIH-funded sequences and should be reported through the NIH system. It’s really that simple.

And which paper were they reported in?

Latinne et al, published in Nature Communications. We were struggling to get that paper out. It was very, very difficult, once the pandemic started, to keep communication with Chinese scientists. The utmost priority as a scientist is to get the data published, not to upload it into some database that’s going to take months to go through. And by the way, that database is somewhere on the USAID government system. It’s very difficult to find. The paper had already been submitted for publication, and the sequences were uploaded into GenBank, the NIH system. And then once the papers were accepted, they became public. And that’s exactly what we did.

Are there sequences that have not been made public?

To my mind, there are no sequences of SARS-related coronaviruses that have not been made public. Some people think there are still viruses that are SARS-related that haven’t been put in GenBank. That’s not true. We’ve uploaded all of the SARS-related coronavirus sequences, or we’ve reported them to NIH, or we’ve published them in scientific papers. And in fact, for most of them, we’ve done all the above. We had them all uploaded before the pandemic. Most of them anyway.

You were on the WHO mission to investigate the origins of SARS-CoV-2. When the NIH grant documents were released, it was a surprise to many people that animal experiments were being done at Wuhan University. If you knew this information, did you share it?

It wasn’t a surprise to NIH because the NIH knew about them.

Right. But did you share that information with the WHO committee or with others who were investigating the origins?

The Wuhan University BSL-3 facility is what we’re talking about. They do humanized mouse work. That was not looked at by the WHO origins group. It’s a BSL-3 lab that had humanized mice under BSL-3 conditions. It’s highly unlikely to be the source of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Did you mention it to the committee?

I mentioned all my work to the committee, of course. We talked about it, for sure.

The Challenges of Public Scrutiny

Dr. Michael Lauer at the NIH has repeatedly asked you for biosafety records from the WIV and said that he has been unable to get some of them.

He says that, but it’s not true. We’ve supplied everything we could possibly supply on the issues that they’ve asked for.

In one of his letters to you, Lauer asked about the biosafety oversight of the work at WIV. In your response to him, you wrote that it consisted of semiannual meetings with the lead investigator and assessments of compliance with all conditions of the award. Biosafety experts have said that this falls short of the level of oversight one would want for this kind of work. You mentioned in an exchange with Lauer that you were offering to pay from EcoHealth’s own coffers for additional biosafety measures. Why did you offer to do this? Did you feel that the biosafety oversight was adequate?

We’re talking about a world-class virology lab run by the Chinese government that is probably the best virology lab in China, and China is very good at virology. It’s very efficiently run, and the biosafety conditions are very good. Just because people think that Covid-19 might have come from WIV doesn’t mean that therefore our oversight of biosafety wasn’t sufficient. We did everything normal in oversight of that lab.

Then why did you suggest these additional measures, if the others were already adequate?

Because I was worried that they were going to terminate our other grants. This is the key driving force for every action we’ve taken since April 24, 2020. I don’t know why people don’t realize that.

Once NIH shows you that it’s willing to terminate your funding and kick people out of a job and put your whole organization under pressure simply because a single politician tells them to, then you start worrying about every other grant and contract that NIH controls. We live in fear that they’re going to do similar abrupt terminations with no cause and no rationale and no logic.

What I was doing then was saying to Michael Lauer, please be reasonable. We’re trying to do everything we can, within the normal bounds of what organizations do. We probably have the best biosafety and field teams in the world.

We’re overcompliant and yet still being accused of lack of compliance.

On February 24, House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans sent a letter to NIH alleging that it is “highly suspicious” that EcoHealth reported the humanized mouse experiment results over two years, and suggesting that more work may have been done that was not reported. How would you respond to that?

This is a simple issue of Chinese nationals writing a report and then us drafting our report to NIH. So there’s a word in there where they say we continued the studies. That doesn’t mean they continued infecting mice with new viruses. No. What it means is they continued doing the research on the one experiment that they’ve done. And that continuation is a lot of work. So they did all the pathology, which means at the end of the experiment, you take all the mice, and you look at every organ in the body. You do detailed microscopical analysis. It takes months. So that’s why it dragged on because you’ve got months of after-the-experiment analysis. And we included the mortality data as part of the pathology data. That’s completely normal.

The House Energy and Commerce Republicans don’t write to us, they write to NIH. Sometimes we hear about it, sometimes we don’t. NIH doesn’t copy us on their responses. Then eventually we get a letter from NIH asking questions, which we always respond to, always within the timeframe and always refuting any allegations with evidence. So that’s what we’ve done.

The latest letter from the House Energy and Commerce Republicans accused us of being overfunded, effectively having two grants to do the same thing. It’s simply not true. The USAID PREDICT grant has completely different goals to the NIH coronavirus grant. For instance, PREDICT looks for between seven and 18 different viral families within samples, not just coronaviruses. NIH is focused solely on coronaviruses. So the goals are different.

The agencies do, as a standard procedure, a review of a grantee’s other proposals to see if there’s overlap between them, because they don’t want to fund the same thing twice. This is absolutely refutable with documentary evidence.

What’s your understanding of the Republicans’ motivation?

Any bipartisan requests for information from the House or the Senate, we’ve responded to. We’ve been working with the U.S. government since the pandemic began to get information to them about every single aspect of this pandemic, including unpublished data. The politicians who are attacking us probably don’t realize or know or care, in some cases. When there’s a request from one side of the political spectrum, we try not to respond to that. We’ve had hundreds of questions sent to us by letter, including requests for thousands of pages of documents. We don’t have the staff to do that. And bear in mind our grant has been terminated and now suspended. We don’t have access to funding. We don’t have the staff to do this work. It’s a horrible, cruel irony that, on the one hand, your funding is cut; and on the other hand, there are now outrageously huge number of demands for us to do work to show data from that funding that’s been cut.

Don’t you have ongoing funding for two other NIH projects?

Yes. Well, you can’t use that money.

What have you been asked to get by NIH that you feel you can’t get?

There are a whole series of things that we’ve been unable to get. A vial of virus. Information on a person that was removed from the website (I did ask them that, and they gave us an explanation, which is perfectly reasonable). NIH asked us for an inspection of the WIV. Every right-minded person on the planet realizes that the World Health Organization asked for an inspection of that lab, and we did go into the lab and ask questions and go around the facilities. For NIH to say that I should organize a U.S.-only, NIH-based or National Academy-based inspection of the lab facilities is a request that is way beyond what’s possible. You know, you can’t go into CDC as a foreigner and do an inspection of the lab.

NIH writing to us saying, “We demand that you do this,” puts us in jeopardy and it’s a security risk. If I was to take that letter from NIH and go to the Beijing airport and say, “I’m here to do this,” I would be arrested and put in jail and probably put on trial, in the same way that scientists from China have come to the U.S. and tried to take vials of virus back to China and been arrested and convicted. NIH doing this is clearly a way for them to try to get the public behind a decision they made that was political about terminating our grant. Ever since that decision, we’ve been put under similar pressure over and over again. The Republicans write to NIH with some fairly outrageous accusations. NIH responds and says, “Don’t worry, we will go and make EcoHealth do this, this, this, and this.”

I don’t think that those questions are posed to truly get to the bottom of the origins of Covid. While the House Republicans are putting pressure on NIH for tiny bits of administrative information, scientists are going out and finding that actually things are really pointing towards a natural origin. And meanwhile, we’re left refuting each one of those allegations. They’re all false. There’s no substance to them at all.

A good proportion of the public have been pushed by misinformation to believe a narrative — and this narrative is repeated daily — that gain-of-function work was funded by Tony Fauci as a back channel to China, and EcoHealth funneled funds to China. Those stories are very beguiling, they sort of make you feel, “Ah! I knew it.” But actually, there’s not a grain of truth to them. Every single action that EcoHealth Alliance has taken has been things that scientists do in the normal course of doing their work.

Closing down that line of research means we lose eyes and ears on the ground in China. And it doesn’t benefit us from a public health point of view or a national security point of view. It’s a huge mistake.

The post Peter Daszak Answers Critics and Defends Coronavirus Research appeared first on The Intercept.

Vehicles line up for gasoline in Long Beach, Calif. on May 3, 1979.

Photo: Bob Riha, Jr./Getty Images

This week, as President Biden banned the import of Russian oil and gas, fuel prices skyrocketed, and pundits and Substack bros across the land repeated the company line we all know by heart now: We need to drill more and increase production.

It’s a rallying cry that makes no sense. On top of the fact that there’s no such thing as an “immediate” increase in oil and gas production, if anything this crisis is one more reason to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels. And in the meantime, since the industry is going to blame the government for everything anyway, a little intervention would actually be helpful here, not to help the oil and gas companies but to rein them in and actually help the American public.

During the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Arab members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries imposed an embargo on exporting oil to the U.S. due to its support of Israel in the war. The result was rationing, miles-long lines at gas stations, a whole lot of headlines questioning our dependency on foreign oil, and ultimately a huge boom in energy efficiency and non-fossil energy in the U.S. The oil industry, of course, claimed that the shortages were all the government’s fault for refusing to let them drill more in the years preceding the embargo.

In 2012, when it was already clear that the fracking boom was headed for a bust, the fossil fuel lobby began pushing hard to lift the ban on exporting American oil and gas. The policy had been in place since that 1970s oil crisis in an effort to insulate Americans from the volatility of the global energy market. But suddenly, exporting was the industry’s last hope to maybe turn a profit on fracking, so the math changed. The story they told was one of national security and energy independence, a return to global superpower status. Their efforts paid off in 2015 when President Barack Obama lifted the ban.

When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, he became the most fossil fuel-backed president in U.S. history, an honor previously held by George W. Bush — and again the industry insisted it needed more land, fewer regulations, and more drilling. Under Trump the goal became not just “energy independence” but “energy dominance.” When Covid hit and the industry was suddenly sitting on mountains of oil barrels worth less than nothing, they seized on the opportunity to request further deregulation. Trump was only too happy to comply. In tracking the fossil fuel-requested subsidies, loopholes, and regulatory rollbacks during the Covid-19 pandemic, I counted well over 100, the vast majority of which remain in place. In fact, prior to leaving office, Trump tried to make as many of them as permanent as possible via executive order. Between those rollbacks and the lifting of the export ban, the oil and gas industry currently has more freedom to drill than it’s had since regulation began.

There are two important things to remember about how oil and gas production work: The government doesn’t place any production limits on oil and gas companies, and there’s no such thing as an immediate production increase. Oil and gas companies decide, all by themselves, whether or not to increase production, and new drilling now generally translates to oil and gas on the market in six to 12 months. A new fracking well takes six to eight months to produce oil, for example. Are there idle wells that could be productive again in less time? Sure. Are there some that were shut down during the pandemic that can be brought back online? Yep. But then we get to the real reasons oil companies aren’t drilling: It’s not government intervention, it’s a combination of money, labor, and materials (shocking, I know).

Like every other industry during the pandemic, the fossil fuel industry was hit by material and labor shortages. Except in the fossil fuel industry’s case, the labor shortage has been coming for a long time; recruitment and retention are hard when you’re in a dying industry. It was so bad last year that ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods even floated the idea of pay raises, in a pandemic economy!

But even if labor were not a concern and the government threw all its resources into solving the industry’s material shortage problem, oil and gas executives don’t want to increase production because the high prices are working for them financially at the moment. They’ve said so explicitly, out loud and in public.

The big fracking companies — Devon, Pioneer, and Continental — burned by multiple boom and bust cycles over the years, pledged in February not to increase production until 2023. “Whether it’s $150 oil, $200 oil, or $100 oil, we’re not going to change our growth plans,” Pioneer CEO Scott Sheffield said during a Bloomberg Television interview. “If the president wants us to grow, I just don’t think the industry can grow anyway.”

In ExxonMobil’s February earnings call, Woods said the company’s focus remains on price per barrel over volume. “One of the primary objectives we’ve had in looking at the portfolio is less about volume and volume targets and more about the quality and profitability of the barrels that we’re producing.” he said. “That’s been the focus. And as we move forward, we’ll continue — you’ll continue to see the quality of the barrels or profitability of the barrels increase.”

According to Tom Sanzillo, director of financial analysis for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, what’s even more unusual than the industry’s hesitancy to drill, given the high prices per barrel, is the fact that they’re not buying up new land.

The government doesn’t place any production limits on oil and gas companies, and there’s no such thing as an immediate production increase.

“Typically the price spike would occur and rather than pay dividends as robustly as they are paying now, they would buy up other assets and maybe increase production,” he said. “What’s happening now is not typical. They’re not buying up other assets, and they’re not drilling. What does that mean for the future? It’s hard to say. It’s possible they’re just biding their time, building confidence amongst investors and will increase production next year, but this is definitely not the typical response to a price spike.”

Instead, they’re banking that money, using it to make up for profits lost in the pandemic and mostly to conduct massive stock buybacks that keep their shareholders happy and might just bring investors back to fossil fuel for one more round.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: the United States’s supposed energy independence. As a net exporter of oil and gas, that’s what the country was promised by industry. But you can’t have independence if you are ruled entirely by global commodity markets. The other big oil-exporting countries are able to use their production capabilities to protect themselves from sudden price changes because their fossil fuel industries are nationalized. Because the U.S. energy sector is entirely private, we have no such luck. For all the industry’s squawking about federal leases, only 10 percent of U.S. drilling happens on public land, the rest is on private land that the government has zero control over. And, again, there is no government entity overseeing production; it’s left entirely up to companies to produce as much or as little oil as they think will be profitable. The closest we have to a regulatory body on production is the Texas Railroad Commission, but even when oil prices went negative during the pandemic, the commission opted not to impose production limits.

Although Biden floated the idea of reinstating the export ban when he campaigned for president, his Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm took that off the table almost immediately. It hasn’t reemerged in the Russia-Ukraine debates, and U.S. exports helped Europe absorb the sudden cutoff of Russian fuel supplies. But an export ban is not a terrible long-term plan. And since the industry is accusing the government of meddling with production anyway, why not call its bluff and start a real conversation about nationalizing the industry and marching it toward a transition to renewable energy? What we’re seeing now is an entirely unmanaged transition, unfolding in real time. It’s painful, and the future is completely unclear, but none of that has to be true.

The post The U.S. Government Doesn’t Control Domestic Oil Production. But It Should. appeared first on The Intercept.

Um boné de beisebol com o slogan “Make America Great Again”, de Donald Trump, sobre o joelho de um participante do evento “Comício para proteger nossas eleições” em Phoenix, em 24 de julho de 2021.

Foto: Brandon Bell/Getty Images

UMA NOSTALGIA DE IMPÉRIO parece mobilizar Vladimir Putin – isso e um desejo de superar a vergonha da terapia de choque econômico-punitiva imposta à Rússia ao final da Guerra Fria. Uma nostalgia de “grandeza” norte-americana é parte do que mobiliza o movimento ainda liderado por Donald Trump – isso e um desejo de superar a vergonha de encarar a vilania do supremacismo branco que moldou a fundação dos Estados Unidos e ainda mutila o país. Uma nostalgia também mobilizou os caminhoneiros canadenses que ocuparam Ottawa por quase um mês, empunhando suas bandeiras vermelhas e brancas como um exército conquistador, evocando tempos mais simples, quando suas consciências não eram incomodadas por pensamentos sobre corpos de crianças indígenas, cujos restos ainda estão sendo descobertos nos terrenos de instituições genocidas que já ousaram se chamar de “escolas”.

Não se trata de uma nostalgia calorosa e acolhedora de lembranças remotas dos prazeres da infância. É uma nostalgia furiosa e aniquiladora que se apega a falsas memórias de glórias passadas contra todas as evidências que as mitigam.

Todos esses movimentos e figuras mobilizados por nostalgias compartilham um anseio por outra coisa – que está relacionada a eles, embora possa parecer que não. Uma nostalgia por uma época em que os combustíveis fósseis podiam ser extraídos da terra sem pensamentos incômodos sobre extinção em massa, sem crianças exigindo o direito a um futuro e sem relatórios do Painel Intergovernamental sobre Mudanças Climáticas (IPCC), como o publicado no fim de fevereiro – e que pode ser lido, nas palavras do secretário-geral da ONU, António Guterres, como um “atlas do sofrimento humano e uma acusação de liderança climática fracassada”. Putin, é claro, lidera um petroestado que, de forma desafiadora, se recusou a diversificar sua dependência econômica em relação ao petróleo e ao gás, apesar do efeito montanha-russa devastador das commodities sobre seu povo e da realidade das mudanças climáticas. Trump é um obcecado pelo dinheiro fácil que os combustíveis fósseis oferecem e, como presidente, fez do negacionismo climático uma política de desregulamentação que é sua marca registrada.

Os caminhoneiros canadenses, por sua vez, não apenas escolheram paralisações com veículos de nove eixos e galões de combustível  contrabandeados como símbolos de protesto. A liderança do movimento também está profundamente enraizada no óleo extra-sujo das areias betuminosas de Alberta. Em 2019, antes de formarem o que hoje chamam de “Comboio da Liberdade”, muitos desses mesmos atores encenaram o ensaio geral conhecido como United We Roll, outro comboio, que mesclava uma defesa zelosa dos oleodutos, oposição à precificação do carbono, xenofobia anti-imigração e nostalgia explícita por um Canadá cristão e branco.

‘O petróleo é um substituto para uma visão de mundo mais ampla’.

Embora os petrodólares financiem esses atores e forças, é fundamental entender que o petróleo é um substituto para uma visão de mundo mais ampla, uma cosmologia profundamente vinculada ao Destino Manifesto e à Doutrina do Descobrimento, que classificou as vidas humanas e não humanas em uma hierarquia rígida, situando os homens brancos cristãos no topo. Nesse contexto, o petróleo é o símbolo da mentalidade extrativista: contempla não apenas a percepção de que seguir extraindo combustíveis fósseis é um direito concedido por Deus, como também é um direito continuar tomando o que quiser, deixando veneno pelo caminho sem nunca olhar para trás.

Por isso, a veloz crise climática representa não somente uma ameaça econômica para pessoas envolvidas nos setores extrativistas, mas também uma ameaça cosmológica para quem tem essa visão de mundo. Porque as mudanças climáticas significam a Terra nos dizendo que nada é de graça, que a era do “domínio” humano (branco e masculino) acabou, que não existe uma relação de mão única que envolva apenas tomar para si, que toda ação implica reação. Séculos de perfurações e jatos de combustível agora desencadeiam forças que fazem com que até as estruturas mais robustas criadas pelas sociedades industriais – cidades costeiras, rodovias, plataformas petrolíferas – pareçam vulneráveis e frágeis. Para a mentalidade extrativista, isso é inaceitável.

Dadas suas cosmologias comuns, não deveríamos nos surpreender com a convergência entre Putin, Trump e os “comboios da liberdade”, a partir de geografias díspares e circunstâncias extremamente diferentes. Trump celebra o “movimento pacífico de caminhoneiros, trabalhadores e famílias patrióticas do Canadá protestando por seus direitos e liberdades mais básicos”; Tucker Carlson e Steve Bannon torcem por Putin enquanto caminhoneiros ostentam bonés da campanha de Trump; Randy Hillier – membro da Assembleia Legislativa de Ontário e um dos apoiadores mais animados do comboio – declara no Twitter que “Muito mais pessoas morreram e morrerão dessa injeção [vacinas contra a covid-19] do que na guerra Rússia/Ucrânia”. E o que dizer do restaurante em Ontário que colocou em seu quadro de pratos do dia o anúncio de que Putin “não está ocupando a Ucrânia”, mas enfrentando o Great Reset e os satanistas, “lutando contra a escravização da humanidade”.

À primeira vista, essas alianças parecem profundamente estranhas e improváveis, mas veja um pouco mais de perto. Fica evidente que há uma atitude comum em relação ao tempo, apegada a uma versão idealizada do passado, que rejeita, de modo enfático, verdades difíceis sobre o futuro. Também compartilham o prazer em exercer força bruta: caminhão de 18 rodas versus pedestre, grito de realidade fabricada versus relatório científico cauteloso, arsenal nuclear versus metralhadora. Essa é a energia que emerge atualmente em esferas muito variadas, deflagrando guerras, atacando sedes de governos e desestabilizando, com postura desafiadora, os sistemas de apoio à vida do nosso planeta. Este é o ethos na raiz de tantas crises democráticas, geopolíticas e climáticas: o apego violento a um passado tóxico e a recusa a enfrentar um futuro mais complexo e inter-relacional, cujas fronteiras finais são os limites do que as pessoas e o planeta suportam. Trata-se da pura expressão do que a escritora bell hooks frequentemente descrevia, com sutil ironia, como “patriarcado capitalista supremacista branco imperialista” – porque às vezes é necessário descrever com precisão todas as grandes armas do nosso mundo.

Um míssil atinge um prédio residencial em Kiev, Ucrânia, em 26 de fevereiro de 2022.

Foto: Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

A tarefa política mais urgente que temos em mãos é pressionar Putin o suficiente para que ele veja sua invasão criminosa da Ucrânia como um risco grande demais a se sustentar. Mas isso é apenas o mais simples dos começos. “Há uma janela breve e que se fecha rapidamente para garantir um futuro habitável no planeta”, afirmou Hans-Otto Portner, copresidente do grupo de trabalho do IPCC responsável pelo relatório histórico divulgado no final de fevereiro. Se há uma tarefa política unificadora em nosso tempo, é a de fornecer uma resposta abrangente a essa conflagração de nostalgias tóxicas. Em um mundo moderno que nasce do genocídio e da desapropriação, é necessário elaborar a visão de um futuro em que nunca estivemos antes.

Salvo raras exceções, as lideranças de nossos países não estão à altura de enfrentar esse desafio. Putin e Trump são figuras nostálgicas, que olham para trás, acompanhados por muita gente na extrema direita. Jair Bolsonaro foi eleito jogando com a nostalgia da ditadura militar no Brasil, e, de forma alarmante, as Filipinas estão prestes a eleger como presidente Ferdinand Marcos Jr., filho do falecido ditador que pilhou e aterrorizou o país asiático nas décadas de 1970 e 1980. Mas não se trata de uma crise exclusiva da direita. Muitos expoentes progressistas também são figuras profundamente nostálgicas que oferecem apenas neoliberalismo requentado como antídoto para o fascismo em ascensão, abertamente alinhados com interesses corporativos predatórios – da indústria farmacêutica aos grandes bancos – que destruíram padrões de vida. Joe Biden foi eleito com a promessa reconfortante de um retorno à normalidade pré-Trump, ainda que esse tenha sido o solo em que o trumpismo brotou. Justin Trudeau é a versão mais jovem do mesmo impulso: um eco superficial de economia da atenção do seu pai, o ex-primeiro-ministro canadense Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Em 2015, a primeira declaração de Trudeau Jr. na arena mundial foi “O Canadá está de volta”. Cinco anos depois, Biden disse: “A América está de volta, pronta para liderar o mundo”.

Não derrotaremos as forças da nostalgia tóxica com essas doses fracas de nostalgia um pouco menos tóxica. Não basta estar “de volta”, precisamos desesperadamente de algo novo. A boa notícia é que sabemos como é lutar, ao mesmo tempo, contra as forças que permitem as agressões imperiais, o pseudo-populismo de direita e o colapso climático. Soa muito como um Green New Deal, um marco para abandonar os combustíveis fósseis investindo em empregos sindicalizados de apoio à família, por meio de ocupações significativas – como a construção de casas verdes acessíveis e boas escolas, começando pelas comunidades mais sistematicamente abandonadas e poluídas. Isso requer deixar para trás a fantasia de crescimento sem limites e investir nos trabalhos de cuidado e reparo.

O Green New Deal — ou o Red, Black, and Green New Deal, iniciativa que busca envolver minorias no ativismo climático — é nossa melhor esperança para a construção de uma coalizão multirracial robusta da classe trabalhadora, fundada na busca de um terreno comum que supere divisões. É também a melhor maneira de bloquear os petrodólares que fluem para pessoas como Putin, já que as economias verdes que venceram o vício do crescimento sem fim não precisam de petróleo e gás importados. Também é assim que cortamos o oxigênio do pseudo-populismo de Trump/Carlson/Bannon, cujas bases se expandem porque eles são muito melhores em explorar a raiva dirigida às elites de Davos do que o Partido Democrata, cujos líderes, em sua maioria, integram essas elites.

A invasão russa na Ucrânia sublinha a urgência desse tipo de transformação verde, mas também traz à tona novos desafios. Antes mesmo de os tanques russos começarem a avançar, já ouvíamos que a melhor maneira de parar o ataque de Putin seria aumentando a produção de combustíveis fósseis na América do Norte. Poucas horas após a invasão, todos os projetos que incendiaram o planeta — e que o movimento por justiça climática conseguiu bloquear na última década — foram novamente colocados à mesa por políticos de direita e especialistas amigáveis à indústria: todos os oleodutos que haviam sido cancelados, os terminais de exportação de gás impedidos, os campos de fracking protegidos e os sonhos de perfurar o Ártico. Como a máquina de guerra de Putin é financiada por petrodólares, nos dizem que a solução é perfurar, fraturar e exportar mais por conta própria.

‘Não existe jogo de curto prazo em relação aos combustíveis fósseis’.

Tudo isso é uma farsa capitalista desastrosa, do tipo que já comentei muitas vezes. Em primeiro lugar, a China segue comprando petróleo russo, não importa o que aconteça na formação de Marcellus ou nas areias betuminosas de Alberta. Em segundo lugar, as linhas do tempo são fantásticas. Não existe jogo de curto prazo em relação aos combustíveis fósseis. Os projetos aventados como solução para a dependência em relação aos combustíveis fósseis russos levariam anos para gerar impacto. Além disso, para que seus custos irrecuperáveis fizessem sentido financeiramente, eles precisariam seguir operando por décadas, o que desafia os alertas cada vez mais desesperados da comunidade científica.

Mas é claro que o impulso para novos projetos fósseis na América do Norte não tem a ver com ajudar os ucranianos ou enfraquecer Putin. A verdadeira razão pela qual se tira a poeira de todos esses sonhos antigos é muito mais grosseira: essa guerra os tornou mais lucrativos da noite para o dia. Na semana em que a Rússia invadiu a Ucrânia, o petróleo de referência europeu — Brent — atingiu o preço de 105 dólares o barril, algo que não era visto desde 2014, e o valor ainda paira acima dos 100 dólares, o dobro comparado ao preço do final de 2020.

Bancos e empresas de energia estão desesperados para aproveitar ao máximo essa alta, no Texas, na Pensilvânia e em Alberta.

Tão certo quanto a determinação de Putin para redesenhar o mapa pós-Guerra Fria do Leste Europeu, esse jogo de poder do setor de combustíveis fósseis deve alterar o mapa da energia. O movimento por justiça climática ganhou algumas batalhas muito importantes na última década. Conseguiu banir o fracking em diversos países, estados e províncias. Também impediu o avanço de grandes oleodutos, como o Keystone XL, muitos terminais de exportação e perfurações no Ártico. As lideranças indígenas desempenharam um papel central em quase todas as lutas. Além disso, de forma extraordinária, até agora 40 trilhões de dólares em dotações e fundos de pensão de mais de 1.500 instituições já foram desinvestidos dos combustíveis fósseis, fruto de uma década de mobilização obstinada em prol do desinvestimento.

Mas aqui há um segredo que nossos movimentos muitas vezes escondem até de si mesmos: desde que o preço do petróleo despencou em 2015, temos lutado contra uma indústria que está de mãos atadas. Isso ocorre porque o petróleo e o gás mais baratos e de fácil acesso estão praticamente esgotados na América do Norte. As batalhas relacionadas a novos projetos dizem respeito sobretudo a fontes não convencionais e de extração mais cara: combustíveis fósseis em rochas de xisto, nas profundezas oceânicas ou sob o gelo do Ártico, ou então o lodo semissólido das areias betuminosas de Alberta. Muitas dessas novas fronteiras de combustíveis fósseis só se tornaram lucrativas após os EUA invadiram o Iraque em 2003, o que elevou os preços do petróleo. De modo repentino, investimentos multibilionários para extrair petróleo do fundo do mar ou transformar o betume lamacento de Alberta em petróleo refinado passaram a fazer sentido. Vivemos anos de uma explosão, como descreve o Financial Times ao descrever o frenesi das areias betuminosas como “o maior boom de recursos da América do Norte desde a corrida do ouro de Klondike”.

No entanto, quando o preço do petróleo colapsou em 2015, a determinação da indústria de continuar crescendo em ritmo vertiginoso se tornou vacilante. Em alguns casos, os investidores não tinham certeza de que receberiam seu dinheiro de volta, o que levou algumas grandes empresas a recuarem em relação ao Ártico e às areias betuminosas. Com lucros e ações em queda, os ativistas do desinvestimento conseguiram argumentar que os estoques de combustíveis fósseis não eram apenas imorais, como também um péssimo investimento, mesmo em termos capitalistas.

Bem, as ações de Putin desataram as mãos da indústria do petróleo e as transformaram em punhos.

Isso explica a recente onda de ataques ao movimento climático e ao pequeno grupo de políticos democratas que obteve avanços no que diz respeito a ações climáticas com base científica. O deputado republicano Tom Reed, de Nova York, afirmou: “Os EUA têm os recursos energéticos para tirar totalmente a Rússia do mercado de petróleo e gás, mas não usamos esses recursos por causa do favorecimento partidário do presidente Biden aos extremistas do meio ambiente do Partido Democrata”.

A verdade é exatamente o oposto. Se as propostas de políticas promissoras da última década, como o Green New Deal, tivessem sido implementadas, Putin não seria capaz de desrespeitar a lei e a opinião pública internacional como tem feito de forma flagrante, com a crença e a segurança de que seguirá tendo clientes para seus hidrocarbonetos cada vez mais lucrativos. A crise subjacente que enfrentamos não é que os países da América do Norte e do Leste Europeu tenham falhado em construir infraestruturas de combustíveis fósseis para desbancar o petróleo e o gás russos, e sim que todos nós – EUA, Canadá, Alemanha, Japão – ainda consumimos quantidades obscenas e insustentáveis desses combustíveis – na verdade, de energia, ponto final.

Conhecemos a saída para essa crise: ampliar a infraestrutura para as energias renováveis, abastecer casas com energia eólica e solar, fazer a transição dos nossos sistemas de transporte para modelos elétricos. E como todas as fontes de energia implicam custos ecológicos, também devemos reduzir a demanda por energia em geral, com maior eficiência, mais transporte coletivo e menos desperdício decorrente do consumo excessivo. O movimento pela justiça climática defende isso há décadas. O problema, portanto, não é que as elites políticas tenham passado muito tempo escutando “extremistas ambientais”, e sim que elas praticamente não nos ouviram.

Agora nos encontramos em um momento estranho. Muita coisa parece estar em jogo. A BP anunciou que venderá sua participação de 20% na gigante petrolífera russa Rosneft, e outras empresas estão seguindo esse exemplo. A notícia é potencialmente boa para a Ucrânia, já que a pressão sobre esse setor essencial certamente atrairá a atenção de Putin. No entanto, também devemos ter consciência de que isso provavelmente só está acontecendo porque a BP planeja tirar o máximo proveito do frenesi do petróleo e do gás na América do Norte e em outras regiões, desencadeado pela alta dos preços. “A BP segue confiante na flexibilidade e resiliência de sua estrutura financeira”, assegurou aos observadores do mercado o comunicado da empresa que anunciou a venda da participação na Rosneft.

Também é significativo que a notícia da BP tenha chegado poucas horas após o chanceler alemão Olaf Scholz anunciar que seu país construirá dois novos terminais de importação para receber carregamentos de gás natural, aumentando a dependência em relação aos combustíveis fósseis, em meio a uma emergência climática. Há muito tempo, esses terminais são criticados por ambientalistas alemães, mas agora eles são propostos sob o manto da guerra, apresentados como a única forma de compensar o gás que, segundo declaração recente de Scholz, não fluiria pelo Nord Stream 2 – gasoduto recém-construído que atravessa o Mar Báltico. Esse movimento transformou uma peça de infraestrutura de combustível fóssil de última geração em um “rombo de 11 bilhões de dólares”, nas palavras do chefe da sucursal europeia do The Globe and Mail, Eric Reguly.

No entanto, não são apenas os projetos de combustíveis fósseis que estão sendo mortos e ressuscitados. “Estamos dobrando a aposta nas energias renováveis”, anunciou Ursula von der Leyen, presidente da Comissão Europeia, antes da invasão russa. “Isso aumentará a independência estratégica da Europa em relação à energia.”

A refinaria de petróleo Sinclair Wyoming, em Sinclair, no estado do Wyoming, em 24 de fevereiro de 2022.

Foto: Bing Guan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Ao observarmos essas peças de xadrez geopolítico voando pelo tabuleiro em questão de dias – acompanhadas da última onda de sanções drásticas contra empresas aéreas e bancos russos –, há muitas razões para o temor, incluindo novas medidas que punem os pobres pelos crimes dos ricos. Mas também há lampejos de otimismo. O que dá ânimo é menos a substância de qualquer movimento individual do que sua velocidade e determinação. Como nos primeiros meses da pandemia, a resposta à invasão russa deve nos lembrar que, apesar da complexidade de nossos sistemas financeiro e energético, eles ainda podem ser transformados por decisões de meros mortais.

‘Se a BP pode desistir de uma participação de 20% em uma importante petrolífera russa, qual investimento não pode ser abandonado se tiver como premissa a destruição de um planeta habitável?’

Vale a pena refletir sobre algumas implicações. Se a Alemanha pode abandonar um gasoduto de 11 bilhões de dólares porque de repente ele é visto como imoral (sempre foi), então toda a infraestrutura de combustíveis fósseis que viola nosso direito a um clima estável também deveria ser debatida. Se a BP pode desistir de uma participação de 20% em uma importante petrolífera russa, qual investimento não pode ser abandonado se tiver como premissa a destruição de um planeta habitável? E se é possível anunciar dinheiro público para a construção de terminais de gás em um piscar de olhos, então não é tarde para lutarmos por muito mais energia solar e eólica.

Como o ambientalista Bill McKibben escreveu em sua excelente newsletter, Biden poderia ajudar nessa transformação, usando os poderes disponíveis em períodos emergenciais para invocar a Lei de Produção de Defesa, construir uma grande quantidade aquecedores elétricos e enviá-los para a Europa, com o objetivo de mitigar a dor da perda do gás russo. Esse é o espírito criativo que necessitamos neste momento. Porque se estamos construindo uma nova infraestrutura de energia – e precisamos fazer isso –, certamente deve ser a infraestrutura do futuro, e não mais nostalgia tóxica.

Há muitas lições que devemos tirar do momento convulso que estamos vivendo. Sobre o risco de permitir que armas nucleares se proliferem sem controle. Sobre a miopia de constranger antigas grandes potências. Sobre a grotesca visão seletiva da mídia ocidental sobre quais países podem ser invadidos e quais vidas são descartáveis. Sobre quais migrações forçadas são tratadas como crise para as pessoas que se deslocam e quais são entendidas como crise para os países aos quais elas se dirigem. Sobre a disposição de pessoas comuns na luta por suas terras – cujas batalhas por autodeterminação e integridade territorial são celebradas em alguns casos como heroicas, em outros, como atividades terroristas. São lições que devemos aprender quando vivemos este momento de história nua e crua.

E devemos aprender esta também: quando a vida está em jogo, nós, humanos, ainda podemos mudar o mundo que construímos e fazê-lo de forma rápida e grandiosa. Assim como ocorreu há dois anos, quando foi declarada a pandemia, vivemos um momento aterrorizante, mas altamente maleável.

A guerra está remodelando nosso mundo, mas a emergência climática também. A questão é: vamos aproveitar os níveis de urgência e ação dos tempos de guerra para catalisarmos a ação climática e para que tenhamos mais segurança nas próximas décadas? Ou permitiremos que a guerra jogue mais combustível no planeta já em chamas? Esse desafio foi colocado de forma mais acentuada recentemente por Svitlana Krakovska, cientista ucraniana que integra o grupo de trabalho do IPCC, responsável pelo relatório divulgado em fevereiro. Enquanto seu país era atacado pelo Kremlin, ela teria dito a seus colegas cientistas, em reunião virtual, que “as mudanças climáticas provocadas pelo homem e a guerra na Ucrânia têm as mesmas raízes: combustíveis fósseis e nossa dependência em relação a eles”.

‘Ao negar o colapso climático, basta um passo para negar pandemias, eleições e basicamente qualquer forma de realidade objetiva’.

Os ataques russos à Ucrânia devem nos lembrar que a influência corruptora do petróleo e do gás está na raiz de praticamente todas as forças que desestabilizam o planeta. E a presunção arrogante de Putin? Um oferecimento de Petróleo, Gás e Armas Nucleares. E os caminhões que ocuparam Ottawa por um mês, assediando moradores e enchendo o ar de fumaça, inspirando outros comboios ao redor do mundo? Uma líder da ocupação foi a um tribunal vestindo um moletom com a frase “Eu ? petróleo e gás”. Ela sabe quem são seus patrocinadores. E a negação da covid-19, acompanhada de uma crescente cultura conspiratória? Ei, ao negar o colapso climático, basta um passo para negar pandemias, eleições e basicamente qualquer forma de realidade objetiva.

Neste estágio avançado do debate, muito disso é bem compreendido. O movimento pela justiça climática ganhou todas as discussões sobre ações que transformam. No nevoeiro da guerra, o que corremos o risco de perder é a nossa coragem. Porque nada é tão capaz de mudar a pauta como a violência extrema, mesmo aquela ativamente subsidiada pelo aumento do preço do petróleo. Para evitar que isso aconteça, poderíamos fazer muito mais do que nos inspirar em Krakovska, que teria dito a seus colegas de IPCC, naquela reunião a portas fechadas: “Não vamos nos render na Ucrânia. E esperamos que o mundo não se renda para construir um futuro resiliente ao clima”. Segundo testemunhas, as palavras dela comoveram tanto seu colega russo que ele teria se aproximado de Krakovska para pedir desculpas pelas ações do governo Putin – um vislumbre breve de um mundo que olha para frente, e não para trás.

Tradução: Ricardo Romanoff

The post A guerra na Ucrânia nos obriga a pensar no futuro dos combustíveis fósseis appeared first on The Intercept.

Pollock, who was in the group chat, was uniquely qualified to contribute to the spin. Just two years prior, GSG, a consulting and polling firm, had produced a report on behalf of Time’s Up, the celebrity-led nonprofit that raises money to support victims of sexual harassment, titled “Opportunities to Engage: Voter Attitudes on Sexual Harassment.” By late February, Cuomo appeared to have made the most of his opportunities, launching a political comeback that cast aside contrition for vindication. “Politics won,” declared his new TV ad, “and New Yorkers lost a proven leader.”

Working for both the premier #MeToo organization and one of the highest-profile #MeToo offenders goes beyond a mere conflict of interest. A political operative playing both roles has a considerable advantage, as they learn how to craft a message precisely calibrated to disarm the opposing side by embedding directly within it. Cuomo framed his exit with an eye toward his reentrance. Time’s Up, meanwhile, imploded significantly as a result of the exposure of both Chair Roberta Kaplan and CEO Tina Tchen’s work helping Cuomo navigate the crisis. And now Cuomo is back, with GSG never having paid even the smallest political price.

Because they work behind the scenes, pollsters have a unique ability to escape scrutiny in American politics. Some of these firms have exploited that immunity to cash in on a startling amount of well-paid work that is directly and immediately at odds with the goals of the clients whose mission they claim to share.

Two firms providing the bulk of research, public relations consulting, and polling for members of the Democratic Party provide those same services to a wide array of corporate clients, many of whom are in direct opposition to the stated aims of their Democratic clientele. GSG and Lake Research Partners have a long history of partnering with candidates, officials, and causes aligned with the Democratic Party’s platform. A review of their other partnerships, however, calls into question the impartiality of the services rendered to the party.

To say that the Democratic Party and GSG have a close relationship would be a gross understatement. GSG boasts its service as pollsters for “some of Washington’s most esteemed leaders,” including Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; and Jacky Rosen, D-Nev., as well as many Democratic House members. The firm further claims itself to be the “leading polling partner for national Democratic party committees and PACs.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki is herself an alumnus, having served as the senior vice president and managing director of GSG’s Washington, D.C., office from 2011 to 2012.

In its role as a research partner and political adviser, GSG conducts studies to make recommendations to politicians and organizations as to how they can best convey and target their messaging. GSG-led focus groups for NextGen America, a youth-focused super PAC, led to the creation of the “Democratic Avengers” ad campaign during the 2020 presidential election. At other times, GSG offers strategy advice for contentious issues. Appearing on the podcast “The Great Battlefield” in 2019, Pollock revealed the guidance he gave to all of the firm’s Democratic clients regarding whether to vote for or against Trump’s impeachment: “I put my faith in Nancy Pelosi any time,” he said. “The singular advice I told all members is follow her. She knows what she’s doing. … Follow her, and whatever you do, don’t get out in front of her.”

GSG’s partnerships have included numerous corporations with a vested interest in government regulation. Oil companies such as Chesapeake Energy Corp. and Lukoil, the third-largest corporation in Russia by revenue, were clients of GSG from 2007 to 2014 and 2006 to 2014, respectively. The firm has also partnered with Big Tech companies including Meta, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter; pharmaceutical companies such as GlaxoSmithKline, Purdue Pharma, and Pfizer; and major financial institutions like Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Pershing Square Holdings, and Vulcan Capital.

Uber and Lyft have each hired GSG to conduct research in support of their bids to resist reclassifying their drivers from independent contractors. David Weil, President Joe Biden’s nominee for administrator of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, has staked a clear position in opposition to these efforts, saying, “Uber and Lyft produce a highly valued brand experience for consumers and investors based on their ability to control and direct drivers who are central to the service they provide. … Those workers are employees, not contractors.”

Weil’s confirmation is currently being held up by members of the business lobby, and it will require full support from Senate Democrats to push through. The major Democratic holdout in Weil’s confirmation is none other than Manchin, a GSG client since 2004, who has yet to fully explain his reluctance to confirm. Manchin’s office did not respond to The Intercept’s request to comment on his position.

While the Democratic Party could hardly be classified as anti-corporate itself, several of GSG’s political clientele profess to stand against the same corporate behaviors that GSG has enabled and continues to enable through its partnerships. When asked if the firm’s corporate partnerships influence its work with Democratic clients, Pollock told The Intercept in a written statement, “GSG is proud to help elect Democrats up and down ballot and our work for each of our clients is confidential and independent of any other work we do.”

This confidential and independent work strains credulity given the oppositional goals of several of the firm’s clients. There are instances, though, of GSG political clients acting against the interest of GSG corporate clients. In 2020, Gillibrand introduced the Data Protection Act to Congress, which would create an “independent Data Protection Agency to regulate the processing of personal data” in the executive branch — four months after Facebook, another GSG client since 2014, agreed to pay over half a million dollars for its role in the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal. In such scenarios, GSG is content to make money from either side of the issue.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on March 3, 2022.

Photo: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lake Research Partners, too, counts many Democratic candidates and organizations among its clients. The firm conducted research for Biden’s presidential campaign and both Bill and Hillary Clinton’s respective presidential campaigns; it has also provided services to nine senators and 56 House members — including progressive Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, and Katie Porter of California — among many other politicians, labor organizations, and committees.

Lake differentiates itself from other pollsters through its lack of corporate partnerships. “We don’t do conventional market research for corporate branding or products. Our clients, whether from the worlds of politics, philanthropy, advocacy, government, labor, or business, are seeking insights and strategy to advance a social purpose and a progressive, inclusive future,” reads its website. A closer look at its history, however, shows a record of serving clients within the pharmaceutical industry and a decadeslong partnership with Republican pollsters.

Lake works with several nonprofit organizations with nice-sounding names that act as fronts for PhRMA.

Lake works with several nonprofit organizations with nice-sounding names that act as fronts for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of major pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Amgen, and GlaxoSmithKline. For at least 14 years, Lake has worked with the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease, a 501(c)(4) organization with a long list of partners, including Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly and Co., the drugmaker sued for driving up the price of insulin. In 2021, the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease spent at least $5.3 million airing TV ads in 13 states and Washington, D.C., against allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Since 2009, PhRMA has given over $1.8 million to various firms to lobby on behalf of the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease.

Between 2019 and 2020, PhRMA donated funds to the campaigns of two Lake Research clients in their House races. Reps. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., and Ron Kind, D-Wis., each received $3,000 from the organization. Kind, who was in the top 25 recipients of pharmaceutical PAC funds in the 2020 election cycle, joined Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., last year in drafting a letter to Biden encouraging the president to continue denying low-income countries’ request for a temporary waiver from intellectual property rules limiting their ability to mass produce Covid-19 vaccines. The letter, which read quite similarly to Pfizer’s own opposition, came two weeks after several prominent Democratic senators drafted a letter of their own asking the president to “prioritize people over pharmaceutical company profits” by supporting the waiver.

Lake Research also conducted polling for the American Cancer Society’s Cancer Action Network in 2018, and it currently lists the group as an advocacy client. In 2019, Cancer Action Network ran nationwide ads opposing changes to Medicare. These changes would have given insurers more opportunities to steer patients toward lower-cost therapies and generic drugs rather than more expensive options. A Kaiser Health News analysis showed that Cancer Action Network reported $671,500 in contributions from PhRMA and drug companies in 2015 alone, leading experts to question whether its opposition to the Medicare changes was rooted in the interests of patients or of drugmakers.

Lake Research Partners has teamed up for decades with Republican-aligned polling and public relations firms.

In addition to its work with these nonprofits, Lake has teamed up for decades with Republican-aligned polling and public relations firms. Celinda Lake of Lake Research and Ed Goeas, president of the Tarrance Group, a prominent Republican pollster since 1977, have partnered on bipartisan “Battleground Polls” since June 1991. Among the 110 Republican clientele the group has successfully helped elect to political office are several members of Congress who voted against confirming the 2020 election — including former Reps. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and Steve King, R-Iowa, and sitting Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

In October 2021, Lake Research and Tarrance published the results of a “Battleground Poll” in which Lake concluded, “Voters in this survey clearly prefer a politician who is willing to work together to get things done, even if it means compromising on their values sometimes (66%) over a politician who consistently fights for their values, even if this means not finding a solution very often (26%).” The poll in question offered only these two responses — a binary choice that leads a voter to conflate compromise with solutions and ideals with stagnation. (Eight percent of voters polled chose not to respond along the suggested lines, writing in their own answer to the question or not answering at all.) Perhaps it is this commitment to bipartisanship and “finding a solution” that Lake clients Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., refer to when they argue the necessity of a strong Republican Party and defang progressive initiatives, such as the infrastructure bill, to ensure bipartisan support.

The Tarrance Group is not Lake’s only “bipartisan” polling partnership. In 2017, Lake was commissioned to conduct a survey on gerrymandering in conjunction with WPA Intelligence, a Republican pollster founded by Texas Sen. Ted Cruz’s former director of research and analytics, Chris Wilson. WPA Intelligence claims to have “done work for over 100 of the Fortune 500 and been involved in work for over 100 current and former members of the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and gubernatorial and statewide officials across the nation,” making it “the go-to research and analytics firm for the conservative-right community.”

Lake Research and GSG are not the only polling firms that work with both Democratic and corporate clients. They are not even the only firms that work with some of the organizations mentioned above. As previously reported by The Intercept, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a firm that, like GSG, conducts polling on behalf of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has represented a variety of corporate clients including Monsanto, Verizon, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and UnitedHealthcare. Hart Research Associates, another prominent Democratic pollster, works with PhRMA as well as Eli Lilly. Along with SKDK, yet another major polling firm working with the Democratic Party, all of these organizations have counted as a client at one time or another the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

GSG and Lake, the public relations professionals they are, market themselves quite differently from one another. Lake’s website appeals to the progressive wing of the Democratic Party — extolling its virtue as a “woman-owned small business with a commitment to diversity.” Almost refreshingly honest, however, is GSG owning its function as an influence broker by advertising its team members’ “decades of experience working in government across state and federal capitols” and “deep relationships with top leaders of every level of government.”

The post Meet the Pollsters Pushing Corporate Clients, Special Interests — and the Democrats appeared first on The Intercept.

The Homeland Security officials warned each other to be vigilant going to and from work as the “Stop the Steal” rally to protest the results of the 2020 election approached. Expecting violence, some planned to stay home when the day finally came. Despite the measures they planned to take for their own safety, however, and the abundant evidence that January 6 was a powder keg waiting to blow, the federal office responsible for warning the rest of the government about dangerous events decided to keep its concerns to itself.

These are the findings of a DHS Office of Inspector General report released Tuesday that calls for “essential changes” to I&A, the department’s troubled intelligence office. The 50-page report documents how the various divisions of I&A — from open-source intelligence “collectors,” to its counterterrorism wing, to officials posted at “fusion centers” around the country — repeatedly encountered evidence of preparations for violence at the Capitol and chose not to report that information to a wider audience.

As early as December 21, 2020, according to the report, I&A officials internally circulated information about an individual describing plans to kill protesters by the dozens; calls to bring weapons to Washington, D.C.; an increase in weapons brandished by individuals already in the capital; and threats of violence against “ideological adversaries,” law enforcement agents, and government officials. None of that information made it outside the office prior to January 6, however. While one I&A official did submit information about the various threats to be approved for a report on January 5, the inspector general noted, that release was not approved and disseminated until two days after the siege, at which point four people who were at the event were dead, including one who was shot by a Capitol police officer.

“In the weeks before the events at the U.S. Capitol, I&A identified specific open source threat information related to January 6 but did not issue any intelligence products about these threats until January 8,” the report said. “On several occasions leading up to January 6, collectors messaged each other about the threats they discovered online.”

The inspector general pointed to two core explanations for I&A’s inaction: a rushed hiring push in 2019 that put inexperienced and untrained officials on the job and public backlash following the office’s targeting of journalists covering the George Floyd protests in 2020.

The report is the latest blow for I&A, which has long been the subject of criticism for its troubled relationship to constitutionally protected protest activities and among those who see the post-9/11 office as unnecessarily duplicative in a world where the FBI already exists. In the summer of 2020, I&A was embroiled in controversy when documents leaked showing that analysts had created files on journalists covering the George Floyd protests. Soon after that, Brian Murphy, the head of I&A at the time, filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that the two top officials at DHS pressured his analysts to downplay intelligence involving threats from the far right and to amplify intelligence supporting the president’s reelection messaging on the dangerousness of left-wing agitators. The DHS political appointees in question, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, denied the allegation.

“As Secretary Mayorkas has said, the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 was a violent assault on our democracy,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to The Intercept. “Over the past fourteen months, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has strengthened intelligence analysis, information sharing, and operational preparedness to help prevent acts of violence and keep our communities safe.”

In addition to implementing a first of its kind National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, the official noted that since the Capitol siege, I&A has conducted “more than 70 engagements with partners across every level of government, in the private sector, and local communities regarding emerging threat,” while the department as whole has issued “more than 95 intelligence products related to domestic violent extremism.”

In December, President Joe Biden nominated Kenneth Wainstein, a former adviser to President George W. Bush and chief of staff to longtime FBI Director Robert Mueller, to take over the intelligence office.

Rep. Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, welcomed the inspector general’s report. “I’m glad that the IG made it clear that our intelligence agencies under the previous administration should have done much more before the January 6th attack on the capitol,” Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi, said in a statement to The Intercept. “Thankfully, Office of Intelligence and Analysis has agreed with IG’s recommendations and I look forward to working with it on implementing them.”

Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, a sharp critic of surveillance excesses at DHS — from Customs and Border Protection’s targeting of journalists, lawyers, and immigration advocates at the border to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that vacuumed up millions of Americans’ financial records — said the report was indicative of a pattern of problems at the nation’s largest law enforcement agency that had impacted his own hometown.

“The new Inspector General Report is another reminder that multiple federal agencies failed to appropriately respond to the very real, public threats to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” Wyden said in a statement to The Intercept. “That failure came only a few months after DHS officials inappropriately collected and shared intelligence about reporters and other people who posed no threat to homeland security in Portland.”

“Clearly DHS Intelligence activities need an overhaul to ensure that the department is focused on real threats, not harassing reporters and non-violent protesters,” the senator added. “The public also deserves more information about DHS’s intelligence activities, and I am pleased that Ken Wainstein, the nominee to head the Department’s intelligence office, has committed to me to conduct an immediate review on how to increase transparency.”

The inspector general’s findings indicate that the dysfunction that plagued I&A in the summer of 2020 continued into the winter of 2021.

In one passage, the report presents a series of messages that two “collectors,” officials responsible for trawling through open-source information to identify domestic security threats, exchanged late on the night of January 2, after one of the officials noticed that people were sharing a map of the Capitol online.

“I feel like people are actually going to try and hurt politicians,” the official who came across the map wrote. “Jan 6th is gonna be crazy, not to mention the inauguration.”

The official suspected that their supervisors would order extra shifts for the event, writing, “Watch us get surged for that lol.”

The second official had a similar feeling, adding that the Proud Boys — a right-wing street-fighting gang — were in town the night before. A few hours later, the first official wrote again.

“Like there’s these people talking about hanging Democrats from ropes like wtf,” they said.

“They’d need alot of rope,” the second official replied. “I think DC is pretty much all democrat haha.”

“I feel like people are actually going to try and hurt politicians.”

By 2:53 a.m., the first official had arrived at a succinct description of the threats they were seeing: “I mean people are talking about storming Congress, bringing guns, willing to die for the cause, hanging politicians with ropes,” they wrote.

According to the inspector general, neither official considered filing a report describing what they were seeing. “When reviewing threats pertaining to January 6 events, the collectors generally concluded that the statements online were hyperbole, and not true threats or incitement, because they thought storming the U.S. Capitol and other threats were unlikely or not possible,” the report said.

One collector who spoke to the oversight investigators recalled describing to a colleague how “nervous” they were after seeing a group of people who looked “like they are going to battle” post about their arrival in Washington. “Yet, these collectors did not draft any intelligence products reflecting possible safety concerns in the area,” the report said.

The inspector general traced some of the inaction to shift changes in the summer of 2019 that resulted in an exodus of collectors from I&A. The office responded with a hiring blitz, bringing in replacements “mostly at entry level positions, with many not having Federal government or intelligence experience.”

“As of January 6, 2021, 16 out of 21 collectors had less than 1 year of experience, and some of these new collectors said they did not receive adequate training to help determine when threat information should be reported,” the report said.

“One collector said people were afraid to do their jobs because of the fear of being reprimanded by I&A leadership and concerns about congressional scrutiny.”

Fallout from the summer of 2020 disclosures — which included hearings on Capitol Hill and a separate inspector general report published, ironically, on January 6, 2021 — may have also played a role in the inaction. Out of the 24 collectors the inspector general interviewed, 22 said that their reporting approach “was affected by the scrutiny they received” the previous summer, when DHS deployed Border Patrol tactical teams in response to protests in Portland, Oregon, and compiled “intelligence reports” on members of the media. When considering the potential for violent actors mixed in with racial justice protests, it was an anything goes approach, the collectors said; in the runup to January 6 there was a “pendulum swing” in the other direction.

“They explained that they thought almost anything was reportable during the Portland protests, but they were hesitant or fearful to report information related to January 6 events,” the report said. “One collector said people were afraid to do their jobs because of the fear of being reprimanded by I&A leadership and concerns about congressional scrutiny. Another explained there was a ‘chilling effect’ on their approach to reporting following the summer of 2020.”

Despite I&A’s failure to do its core job in one of the most important moments in the nearly two-decade existence of DHS, the inspector general’s recommendations for correcting course were mild, focusing mostly on improved training and guidance. The inspector general did, however, gesture at the historical significance of the January 6 siege and the need for change, particularly in the event of another attempted government overthrow.

“I&A staff disagree about whether an intelligence product from I&A would have affected the outcome on January 6,” the report said. “Nonetheless, the issues we found during our review demonstrate the need for essential changes at I&A to ensure it is better equipped to respond to similar events in the future.”

Update: March 10, 2022, 1:47 p.m. ET
This article has been updated to include a statement from the Department of Homeland Security that was received after publication. 

The post “Jan 6th is gonna be crazy. … lol”: DHS Officials Expected Violence at the Capitol, Kept It to Themselves appeared first on The Intercept.

Weapons and other military hardware delivered by the United States military at Boryspil Airport near Kyiv, Ukraine, on Jan. 25, 2022.

Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The world’s largest arms dealer, the United States, is leading an effort among NATO nations to dramatically increase the flow of weapons to the besieged government in Kyiv. While the Biden administration has resisted calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, a move which could result in an overt hot war between major nuclear powers, the weapons transfers represent a significant escalation of Western involvement.

Despite strong efforts in recent weeks from NATO governments and many large media outlets to minimize or excise the relevant role Western powers played in the years leading up to Russia’s brutal invasion, there has been a sustained proxy war in Ukraine between Moscow and Washington for a decade. Unless the desired outcome is a full-spectrum war between Russia and the U.S.-NATO bloc, Western nations — particularly the U.S. — must ask themselves whether the current course of action is more or less likely to facilitate an end to the horrifying violence being imposed on Ukraine’s civilian population.

Throughout its two terms, the Obama administration resisted providing overt lethal assistance to Ukraine, concerned that such a move by the U.S. would provoke Russian President Vladimir Putin. Even after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, President Barack Obama maintained that stance, though his administration did provide a range of other nonlethal military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine, including training. That posture shifted under President Donald Trump, and Washington began a relatively modest flow of weapons shipments. Trump’s attempt to cajole Ukraine into involving itself in his electoral battle with Joe Biden notwithstanding, U.S. military support for Kyiv has ticked steadily upward.

Even before Russia’s invasion, the Biden administration had begun a process of increasing lethal aid. In his first year in office, Biden approved more military aid to Ukraine — some $650 million — than the U.S. had ever provided. On February 26, as a result of Putin’s invasion, the guardrails came off: an “unprecedented” additional $350 million weapons package was pushed through. There is now wide bipartisan support in Washington for an immediate and aggressive $13.5 billion effort to ship American arms and other assistance, including humanitarian aid, to Ukraine. The package will also cover the cost of additional deployments of U.S. military assets and troops to the region. Historically, weapons shipments to Ukraine have taken months to implement. Now they are moving within days.

The U.S. has moved at remarkable speed to deliver the weapons approved by Biden in late February: A range of Javelin antitank missiles, rocket launchers, guns, and ammunition have already made their way onto the battlefield. “The shipment of weapons — which also includes Stinger antiaircraft missiles from U.S. military stockpiles, mostly in Germany — represents the largest single authorized transfer of arms from U.S. military warehouses to another country,” according to the New York Times, citing a Pentagon official.

More than a dozen other NATO countries and several non-NATO European nations have started or expanded their weapons shipments to Ukraine. In a significant move, Germany broke with its long-standing policy of not sending weapons to conflict zones. As part of its initial package, Berlin is moving some 1,500 rocket launchers and Stinger missiles and potentially additional Soviet-era shoulder-fired Strela missiles. The European Union has also broken its own resistance to providing lethal assistance and entered the arms market with a commitment of nearly half a billion dollars in weapons to Ukraine. EU treaties prohibit the use of budgetary money for weapons transfers, so the union tapped funds from its “off-budget” European Peace Facility. “For the first time ever, the EU will finance the purchase and delivery of weapons and other equipment to a country that is under attack,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “This is a watershed moment.”

The substantially expanded and expedited Western arms shipments, and increased intelligence support, could prolong large-scale military action. NATO has also said that any Russian attack against the supply lines facilitating the flow of weapons to Ukraine will trigger an invocation of Article 5 of the NATO charter, thus raising the specter of military action against Russia. Moscow, which has already labeled the sweeping sanctions imposed by the U.S. and its allies a declaration of “economic war,” has warned that nations sending weapons to Ukraine “will be responsible for any consequences of such actions.”

The weapons will not be sufficient to defeat Russia militarily.

The weapons will surely aid Ukrainian forces in waging counterattacks against Moscow’s invasion but will not be sufficient to defeat Russia militarily. Should Moscow succeed in forcibly taking major Ukrainian cities or even in toppling the government, the Western weapons are likely to be used in a protracted armed insurgency and war of attrition that may produce echoes of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

The dominant Western media and government narrative about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine requires a total rejection of the legitimacy of any Russian security concerns. Viewing Putin as an unhinged madman coldly acting out of a love of brutality and conquest may be a more satisfying narrative, but it will not bring an end to the war. Any diplomatic or negotiated resolution of the crisis will necessarily entail Ukrainian concessions, so it’s important to understand Moscow’s point of view. In an interview with ABC World News on March 7, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to acknowledge this. “I think [Putin] is capable of stopping the war that he started,” Zelensky told David Muir. “And even if he doesn’t think that he was the one who started, he should know one important thing, a thing that cannot deny, that stopping the war is what he’s capable of.”

It is understandable and reasonable that people across the U.S. and Europe are demanding their governments send more weapons to support Ukraine in resisting the Russian invasion. Without the Western-supplied weapons Ukraine already possessed, it is very likely Russia would be in control of much larger swaths of the country. It is also vital that people advocating such a policy consider whether a sizable increase in U.S. and NATO weapons transfers will prolong the conflict and result in even more civilian death and destruction.

If the Western position is that Russia must publicly admit that it is criminal and wrong, and if such a confession is a precondition to any negotiation, then flooding Ukraine with even more weapons is a logical move — especially if you believe that Putin is insane and wants to bring the world to nuclear war and annihilation if he is not able to seize Ukraine. If, however, the aim is to end the horrors as swiftly as possible, then we require a serious analysis of the impact such large-scale weapons shipments will have on the fate of Ukrainian civilians and the prospects for an end to the invasion.

If the flow of weapons delays a negotiated settlement between Russia, Ukraine, and NATO, then it is hard to see the massive scope of the weapons transfers as a clear positive.

It may be the case that the flow of Western weapons to the Ukrainian forces will so bleed Russia that it pulls out of Ukraine, fatally damaging Putin’s grip on power and saving many lives. In that case, these shipments will be seen as a decisive factor in Ukraine’s defeat of Russia. But if it doesn’t, and the flow of weapons delays a negotiated settlement between Russia, Ukraine, and NATO, then it is hard to see the massive scope of the weapons transfers as a clear positive.

In a thoughtful analysis for Responsible Statecraft, Russia expert Anatol Lieven argued that Ukraine had already achieved a significant victory against Putin. “For it is now obvious that any such pro-Russian authorities imposed by Moscow in Ukraine would lack all support and legitimacy, and could never maintain any kind of stable rule,” Lieven wrote. “To keep them in place would require the permanent presence of Russian forces, permanent Russian casualties and permanent ferocious repression. In short, a Russian forever war.” He argued, “The Ukrainians have in fact achieved what the Finns achieved by their heroic resistance against Soviet invasion. The Finns convinced Stalin that it would be far too difficult to impose a Communist government on Finland. The Ukrainians have convinced sensible members of the Russian establishment — and hopefully, Putin himself — that Russia cannot dominate the whole of Ukraine. The fierce resistance of the Ukrainians should also convince Russia of the utter folly of breaking an agreement and attacking Ukraine again.”

Members of the U.S. Army 173rd Airborne Brigade demonstrate urban warfare techniques as Ukrainian soldiers look on on the second day of the “Rapid Trident” bilateral military exercises between the United States and Ukraine that include troops from a variety of NATO and non-NATO countries on Sept. 16, 2014 near Yavorov, Ukraine.

Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

The U.S. and NATO are not going to kick countries out of NATO, and Putin knows that, despite his call for an effective return to NATO’s 1997 footprint. NATO is not going to withdraw its forces and weapons from Poland, the Balkans, or the former Soviet territories of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. But Putin clearly believes his demand that Ukraine enshrine neutrality in its laws and commit to staying out of NATO is realistic. In recent days, critics of NATO expansion have pointed to the 2008 observations of Biden’s CIA Director William Burns as particularly relevant on this point. “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin),” Burns noted in a diplomatic cable from Moscow to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which he quoted in his 2019 book “The Back Channel: American Diplomacy in a Disordered World.” “In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”

Russia is also demanding that Ukraine recognize the independence of the two breakaway territories of Donetsk and Luhansk, and that Crimea is Russian territory. Since 2014, an estimated 14,000 people — including large numbers of civilians — have been killed in fighting between the government — aided by paramilitaries, including armed neo-Nazi elements — and Russian-backed insurgents, mercenaries, and paramilitaries in the eastern Donbas region. The practical reality now is that Russia appears to be on its way toward consolidating control of those areas. Barring direct NATO intervention, Ukraine would have to sacrifice an immense number of lives and resources in what would almost certainly be a failed military venture to wrestle back even nominal control of these territories.

Despite the absurdity of Putin’s sweeping portrayal of Ukraine as a state run by Nazis, there are murderous fascist elements in Ukraine, including some that have been given official legitimacy within its armed forces. Since 2018, largely because of the work of Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and other progressive lawmakers, there has been an official ban on U.S. assistance going to the far-right Azov Battalion. Verifying that the ban is being respected by Ukraine is almost impossible, especially now that Azov is an official part of the country’s National Guard. If the U.S. were blunt in publicly condemning the role of neo-Nazis and other far-right actors in Ukraine, including those within the armed forces and semi-official militias, it would help undermine Putin’s exaggerated rhetoric.

Given the long history of fascism in Ukraine, dating back to World War II, it’s dishonest to dismiss the ongoing involvement of neo-Nazis in the politics and armed forces of Ukraine. In the midst of the invasion, and with the massive flow of Western arms into Ukraine, it is unimaginable that U.S. and NATO weaponry will not fall into the hands of some of these forces. Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar is one of the few members of Congress to publicly criticize the increased flow of weapons. She said “the consequences of flooding Ukraine” with weapons “are unpredictable and likely disastrous,” and that she was particularly concerned about “paramilitary groups w/out accountability.” In her Twitter thread on the issue, Omar clarified, “I support giving Ukraine the resources it needs to defend its people, I just have legitimate concerns about the size and scope.”

The steady post-Cold War expansion of NATO, combined with the U.S.-backed removal of a democratically elected, pro-Russia president in 2014, along with the increased flow of weapons to Ukraine, and the bloody eight-year war against Russian separatists in the east of the country are all major aspects of Moscow’s narrative. They do not in any way constitute a reasonable justification for this brutal invasion, but this history will all be relevant to any peace settlement.

There is much discussion these days about the events in Ukraine heralding a new era in international order. Within the elite U.S. foreign policy power structure, we are witnessing evidence of a merging of neoconservative Cold War politics and the “military humanism” at the heart of the Clinton administration’s justification for military action in the 1990s. Putin’s own actions have contributed to an expansion of the very threats he claims to be confronting. His criminal invasion of Ukraine has fueled U.S. and NATO efforts to increase their ground forces near Russia; the U.S. has deployed more than 15,000 troops to Europe in response and the total number of U.S. troops in Europe is approaching 100,000. The invasion has attracted even more neo-Nazis and white supremacists as “foreign fighters,” and they are pouring into Ukraine under the cover of defending the country against foreign aggression. Russia’s actions will also further flood the region with mercenaries and weapons that can easily be transferred and trafficked. The Russian economy is being pummeled, and brave protests against the war are spreading inside Russia. Putin may have some fifth-dimensional chess he believes he is playing, but everything we currently understand suggests that he has made a monumental series of severe military and political miscalculations.

The Biden administration has made a number of decisions over the past two weeks that indicate there are influential voices of restraint at high levels of power in the administration. This week, the U.S. nixed a proposal by Poland to transfer MiG-29 warplanes to Ukraine, saying it could be viewed by Russia as escalatory and make direct conflict between NATO and Russia more likely. On March 2, the Pentagon canceled a previously scheduled intercontinental ballistic missile test, and the administration has made a consistent case against imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine despite impassioned pleas from Ukraine and indications that many Americans want one — or think they do.

The decisions made now in Washington, other NATO capitals, and Moscow will have sweeping ramifications for years to come. Citizens of Western nations cannot control the actions of Putin, but they can advocate for commonsense responses from their own leaders. This requires considering the predictable and foreseeable long-term consequences of short-term action. In the face of heinous atrocities against civilians and a heartbreaking refugee crisis, it is understandable that good people would demand extreme action in the name of bringing it all to a halt. The tragic reality is that escalation by the U.S. and NATO will not achieve that, certainly not without grave costs, and could lead to an even worse catastrophe for Ukrainian civilians, if not a wider global conflict. In that case, the only beneficiaries will be those who are now winning the war in Ukraine: the weapons manufacturers and arms dealers.

The post U.S. and NATO’s Unprecedented Weapons Transfers to Ukraine Could Prolong the War appeared first on The Intercept.

Thousands take part in a protest against the Argentine government’s agreement with the International Monetary Fund in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Feb. 8, 2022.

Photo: Muhammed Emin Canik/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Over the past two months, thousands of people have taken to the streets of my country, Argentina, expressing outrage over a record-breaking loan from the International Monetary Fund that threatens to plunge us into a perpetual debt crisis. The IMF granted us the loan in 2018, and our Congress resumed deliberations over its repayment Thursday. But the financial body has inflicted misery on my people for decades.

The IMF’s engagement with Argentina follows a now-familiar pattern: The fund’s loans are accompanied by demands to cut public services, pay, and entitlements and sell off the public realm. The wealth of the few must be protected, the technocrats and loan managers seem to say, from the demands of the many. The results are now tragically familiar too: Inequality, poverty, and insecurity soar.

You’d think that we’d have learned our lesson, yet in 2018 the IMF granted the largest loan in its history to Argentina — $56.3 billion — locking us into years of austerity and privatization policies while shackling our country to an infeasible debt repayment schedule. This is why next month Progressive International will convene economists, lawyers, and expert witnesses to hold an inquiry into the IMF. The probe will review cases of IMF illegality, impunity, and disregard for human rights that stretch across decades and continents and will demand compliance and accountability from the fund.

The timing of the IMF’s 2018 agreement with Argentina, completed the year before a presidential election, was no accident. The details were hidden from the public and those of us in Congress tasked with providing oversight. Our finance minister, Martin Guzmán, has claimed that the U.S. representative on the IMF board at the time admitted that the intention was for the loan to sway the election in favor of right-wing incumbent Mauricio Macri, an ally of then-U.S. President Donald Trump. The IMF’s bet on Macri’s reelection gave it action both ways. The fund’s likely preferred candidate lost, but the winner, Alberto Fernández, was stuck with the loser’s loan — and a $20 billion repayment scheduled for 2022. His government has been weighed down by the burden of billions in repayments in the middle of a pandemic while stuck in negotiations with the IMF to agree on repayment terms.

Meanwhile, we looked on as the loan allowed the wealthy to take their money out of the country. Undeterred, the IMF continued disbursing each installment of the loan, financing capital flight and leaving the people of my country to suffer the consequences.

Many of us began to investigate the legality of this loan. Now we have the proof: In December 2021, the IMF published an explosive internal review of its 2018 loan agreement with Argentina. The report admitted to systematic failures in the design and delivery of the loan. It not only violated our laws here in Argentina, but many claim that it also violated the IMF’s own bylaws. Despite repeated warnings from staff, the IMF failed to comply with its duty of due diligence in the provision of the largest loan in its history.

The evidence is now clear, but there is seemingly no established mechanism of accountability for justice to be served — a painful reminder of the level of impunity in which the IMF operates. Yet my country’s story isn’t unique. Our neighbor Ecuador negotiated a loan with the fund in 2020 that forced the sacking of thousands of public health workers and the privatization of its central bank, resulting in severe recession and increases in poverty. The people of Greece, Pakistan, Kenya, and many other countries have suffered in similar ways.

It’s time to change the story. The IMF must be held to account, and there must be consequences for the lasting damage it has caused to the people in countries like my own. But who will provide the justice that we so desperately and determinedly seek?

There is a route to justice available that we should seize on: Move the International Court of Justice to investigate the IMF for illegitimate lending. The Progressive International inquiry is a first step toward building evidence for a case against the IMF and ending its impunity once and for all.

It is evident that the IMF is responsible for endorsing the process of capital flight that followed the granting of its loan to my country. It clearly operated in breach of its own bylaws and articles of agreement in what appears to have been a brazen attempt to pursue the agenda of its largest contributor, the United States government, at the expense of a country in deep financial distress. The IMF has an obligation to repair the damage caused to our people when it granted this loan. We must pursue justice for this tragedy that our communities were forced to endure and seek reparations.

In Argentina, we have seen history repeat itself time and again, as the IMF continues to operate with impunity, instilling its form of financial colonialism without ever being held to account for the damage it leaves in its wake. By taking this case to the International Court of Justice, Argentina can reclaim its sovereignty and show that the IMF is not beyond the reach of international justice — and pave the way for other countries to follow suit.

The post Argentina Demands Justice From the IMF appeared first on The Intercept.

“These alleged extremists undertook a plot to kidnap a sitting governor,” FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Josh P. Hauxhurst said in a statement. “Whenever extremists move into the realm of actually planning violent acts, the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force stands ready to identify, disrupt, and dismantle their operations, preventing them from following through on those plans.”

In addition to those charged federally, eight other members of the Wolverine Watchmen were arrested on state charges related to the plot. The arrests made national news, in part because a group of right-wing extremists plotting to kidnap a high-profile Democrat fit with the prevailing media narrative at the time that President Donald Trump was fomenting violence as part of his reelection campaign. The announcement of the kidnapping plan even knocked a hurricane’s landfall out of the top spot on CBS Evening News.

But the circumstances of the case and the megaphone the Justice Department used to publicize it were familiar. As with the prosecutions of more than 350 international terrorism defendants caught in post-9/11 FBI terrorism stings, in which agents or informants provide encouragement and weapons for criminal plots, questions of entrapment quickly emerged in the Wolverine Watchmen case. The FBI had used at least a dozen informants and several undercover agents to build the case. One of the group’s key members, known as “Big Dan,” was an FBI informant. Another, an apparent explosives expert whose role was critical to the alleged kidnapping plan, was in fact an FBI undercover agent.

“There’s nothing wrong with using confidential sources to help facilitate or move along an investigation, but it becomes really dicey when, in a case like this one, there are nearly as many informants as there are defendants,” Michael Sherwin, the former deputy attorney general for national security during the Trump administration, told The Intercept. “That’s a huge red flag, making you wonder if this is one of those cases that are manufactured to increase stats.”

Sherwin, a career federal prosecutor, also served as the acting U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia during the end of the Trump administration and the beginning of the Biden administration. Because Sherwin had prosecuted a Chinese businesswoman who trespassed at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, his arrival in Washington under Attorney General Bill Barr was initially viewed by some as further evidence of a politicized Justice Department. Sherwin approved of providing internal FBI records to lawyers representing former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was charged with making false statements to the FBI. In a controversial move, the Justice Department then sought to dismiss the case against Flynn.

Despite his role in controversial and high-profile cases, however, Sherwin wasn’t seen by everyone as a political henchman. The Miami Herald’s editorial board, whose members were familiar with Sherwin’s long career as federal prosecutor in Florida, suggested that President Joe Biden retain Sherwin at the Justice Department. And when Biden asked 56 Trump-appointed U.S. attorneys to step down, Sherwin wasn’t among them.

Sherwin was the top federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia during the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, and he went on to lead what became the largest criminal investigation in American history, giving him a unique perspective on how the government is responding to domestic extremists and how politics and public pressure have shaped that response.

“January 6 was significant,” he said. “Were there dangerous actors there? Yes. Were there other just garden-variety criminals who got arrested? Of course. But the thing I think people are losing sight of is that this is nothing new. Going back to Ruby Ridge, going back to Waco, going back to Oklahoma City, going back to the militia groups in Michigan and Arizona — this is something that has existed for decades.”

Sherwin took the national stage in March 2021, when he gave an interview to “60 Minutes” in which he said he believed that in the cases of some Capitol rioters, the facts of their alleged crimes could support charges of sedition, a rarely filed and serious criminal offense. (His prediction came true nearly a year later, when federal prosecutors charged Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes and 10 others with seditious conspiracy.) Although the Justice Department had given Sherwin permission to speak about the January 6 investigation at news conferences, they had not authorized him to speak to “60 Minutes,” and a U.S. District Court judge overseeing one of the January 6 cases complained that Sherwin’s “60 Minutes” interview had “the potential to affect the jury pool and the rights of these defendants.” The Justice Department launched an internal probe of Sherwin for violating Justice Department media protocols. The probe’s results have never been released. Sherwin later resigned from the Justice Department to take a position in private practice, a move he says he had previously been planning.

Michael Sherwin, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, speaks on the investigation into the Capitol Hill riots on Jan. 12, 2021, in Washington, D.C.

Photo: Sarah Silbiger-Pool/Getty Images

Having witnessed firsthand how the Justice Department was changing its approach to domestic extremist cases, Sherwin questions whether highly publicized FBI stings might exaggerate the threat in the same way that similar stings produced hundreds of Islamist terrorism cases and helped inflate the perceived danger of international terrorism inside the United States. The Michigan sting involving the plot to kidnap Whitmer is emblematic of his concern. “This case is a disaster,” Sherwin said.

Jury selection in the federal trial of the Wolverine Watchmen began this week. Defense lawyers have signaled that they will argue that their clients were entrapped, and while entrapment defenses have rarely succeeded in international terrorism sting cases, the Justice Department appears concerned. Prosecutors cut a plea deal on the eve of the trial with one defendant, Kaleb Franks, in exchange for his testimony that he was not entrapped by government agents.

“The key to the government’s plan was to turn general discontent with Gov. Whitmer’s COVID-19 restrictions into a crime that could be prosecuted,” defense lawyers wrote in a joint motion. “The government picked what it knew would be a sensational charge: conspiracy to kidnap the governor. When the government was faced with evidence showing that the defendants had no interest in a kidnapping plot, it refused to accept failure and continued to push its plan.”

During the first two decades after 9/11, undercover terrorism stings became common, allowing the FBI to nab would-be terrorists and justify billions of dollars in counterterrorism funding but also leading to potentially illegal mass surveillance of Muslims and accusations of entrapment.

Now, as the Justice Department creates a new domestic terrorism unit and the FBI reorients to combat a perceived growing threat from domestic extremists, the Wolverine Watchmen case suggests that federal agents may rely on the same sting tactics that helped overstate the risk of Islamist terrorism to investigate potential domestic extremists.

Extremists Among Us

The conflict between right-wing extremism and federal law enforcement isn’t new in America. Nearly four decades before the creation of the FBI, the agency’s predecessor, known as the Bureau of Investigation, received authority to investigate the Ku Klux Klan and prosecute its members in federal court. More recently, the Oklahoma City bombing; the standoffs at Waco, Texas, and Ruby Ridge, Idaho; and investigations of militia groups shaped federal law enforcement agencies’ response to domestic extremists.

But after the 9/11 attacks, Congress expanded anti-terrorism laws and powers and the Bush administration reorganized the FBI into an agency focused primarily on counterterrorism, with the threat of Islamist extremism the paramount concern. The Justice Department formed an entirely new branch, the National Security Division, which was initially so consumed by the threat of international terrorist groups that domestic extremism investigations did not fall under its purview. Even after domestic terrorism became part of the National Security Division’s mandate, a double standard defined the first two decades after 9/11: Islamist extremists involved in bombing plots were always charged under anti-terrorism laws, such as using weapons of mass destruction and providing material support to terrorists, while domestic extremists engaged in similar crimes usually faced lesser explosives charges.

This double standard had the effect of playing up the threat from Islamist extremists, as the Justice Department issued press releases touting these terrorism charges and media coverage followed dutifully, while downplaying the threat of domestic extremists, whose prosecutions were often not announced with the same fanfare, if they were announced at all. Trump’s call as a presidential candidate for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” tapped into the Islamophobic hysteria that the Justice Department had helped create over 15 years of high-profile terrorism prosecutions.

FBI officials investigate the site of an explosion at the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minn., on Aug. 15, 2017.

Photo: David Joles/Star Tribune via AP

Violence from individual Trump supporters, inspired by the candidate who went on to become president, began to alter that narrative even as the Justice Department remained hesitant to bring terrorism charges against right-wing actors. When Emily Claire Hari (who was convicted under the name Michael) led a group of people inspired by Trump-related conspiracy theories to bomb a mosque in Minnesota and try to a bomb women’s clinic in Illinois, the Justice Department didn’t bring terrorism-related charges.

Still, the Hari case was one of several during Trump’s presidency that raised questions about potential violence by his supporters. Inside the FBI, some agents eventually described these threats as “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists.” In the fall of 2018, a strip club DJ in Florida named Cesar Sayoc started mailing bombs to current and former Democratic Party officials and news organizations, among others. Sayoc drove a white van whose windows were covered in stickers that praised Trump and denigrated media organizations and Democratic Party politicians. His arrest made international news: a perfect vision of the feared Trump supporter as terrorist.

Sherwin, who had come to Miami in 2007 as a federal prosecutor after serving as a Navy intelligence officer in Iraq and Afghanistan, was by then a top national security prosecutor in the Justice Department. He was the lead prosecutor who tracked, captured, and interrogated Sayoc in South Florida. In line with the Justice Department’s practices at the time, Sherwin charged Sayoc with explosives violations and making threats. But the case, under withering media scrutiny that included live helicopter coverage of the FBI investigation, quickly became a political football inside the Justice Department. Sayoc was extradited to New York, where several of his bombs had been sent, in a move that Sherwin saw as the Justice Department making decisions in response to public and political pressure.

“Cesar Sayoc sent a litany of mail bombs to a lot of high-profile individuals and the media,” Sherwin said. “Those bombs were all constructed in South Florida. They were all mailed from South Florida. He was detained and arrested in South Florida. The case ends up in New York because of politics, because it got a lot of headlines, because people at Main Justice at the time hooked up different people in the Southern District [of New York] with bringing the case there.”

In Manhattan, prosecutors took the step, then uncommon in prosecutions of domestic extremists, of filing weapons of mass destruction charges against Sayoc — terrorism charges that required approval from the Justice Department’s National Security Division. This treatment was more in line with the way the Justice Department had handled bombing cases involving Islamist extremists. In U.S. law, weapons of mass destruction are defined so broadly that they could include any sort of crude improvised explosive device, making the law’s application subject to political will. (Notably, the charges in the Michigan sting case include conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction.)

“It goes back to feeding the beast — allowing people to get headlines and funding.”

“Cesar Sayoc was making real devices,” Sherwin said. “They were extremely low-wattage devices he learned to make on the internet with firecracker residue. They were devices my 18-year-old son could have made watching YouTube. They were active, but they weren’t constructed properly. I think they would have taken off a finger, but they wouldn’t have killed anyone. Is that a weapon of mass destruction? Look, I don’t want to fence with the definition of WMD under the U.S. criminal code, but I think sometimes labels are overextended on individuals, and it goes back to feeding the beast — allowing people to get headlines and funding. Sometimes, if a case straddles on just a regular criminal case and maybe — maybe — it has a breadcrumb of a domestic terrorism case, it’s thrown over the line and called a domestic terrorism case, because it makes the numbers look better. It justifies money and spending on Joint Terrorism Task Forces and everything else.”

That’s what happened in some international terrorism prosecutions during the two decades after 9/11, Sherwin said. The Justice Department has charged more than 80 defendants in international terrorism cases with using or conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. In some of these cases, the bombs were just as crude and infective as Sayoc’s.

Although domestic terrorism is defined in U.S. law, the Justice Department and the FBI have been unclear about what constitutes a domestic terrorism case and how many cases are open at any given time. Through a Freedom of Information Act request, The Intercept obtained a 60-page domestic terrorism case list, from 2018, from the National Security Division. While heavily redacted, the list shows that the Justice Department had broken down domestic terrorism offenses into what prosecutors termed “affiliations,” including abortion extremism, anarchist extremism, animal rights extremism, Black separatist extremism, environmental extremism, and militia extremism.

While the list included some defendants whose crimes could be considered terrorism — such as Glendon Scott Crawford, who was arrested following an FBI sting in which he tried to build a radiological “death ray” to kill Muslims — it also included individuals whose terrorism label appeared questionable, such as a college student who sent an empty threat and a Native American activist who fired a handgun while resisting arrest during a protest.

FBI Director Christopher Wray testifies during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 2, 2021.

Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images

In recent testimony before Congress, the FBI’s director, Christopher Wray, has thrown out large numbers to describe the FBI’s domestic terrorism case load. In 2017, he told Congress that there were “about 1,000 open domestic terrorism investigations.” Three years later, he claimed that number had risen to 2,000. Six months after offering that number, Wray told Congress that the FBI was handling “around 2,700 investigations.”

Having seen how politics shaped the Sayoc prosecution and how numbers drive policy and funding in Washington, Sherwin views Wray’s numbers skeptically, since the FBI is under political pressure to show a muscled response to domestic extremism. “So of course, you pump up those numbers,” Sherwin said. “Maybe it’s 100 full field investigations, but you pump up that number to 2,000, even if it’s just the opening of a preliminary assessment on one 17-year-old in his basement in Ohio.”

The Whitmer Plot

Pete Musico wasn’t hiding his contempt for Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who’d been elected just two years after Great Lake State voters helped send Trump to the White House.

A white man in his early 40s with a long beard and short-cropped hair, Musico aired his rough-edged political views in the oversharing way people seem to favor nowadays — through hastily recorded videos mostly from the driver’s seat of his car and then uploaded to YouTube. So what if the camera angles were unflattering, the picture jerky, and the background noise distracting? Musico had something to say.

“We all carry guns. We all got guns,” he declared in one video. “There will be a civil war in this country.”

Musico’s platform wasn’t exactly big. His videos rarely garnered more than 100 views, and some got fewer than 10. His YouTube account had started innocently, with a short video of his 13-year-old daughter dancing with her mother. But after Trump took office in 2017, Musico began recording video rants about the “deep state,” immigration, taxes, and gun control. He fashioned himself as a citizen journalist and claimed that he’d tried to secure an interview with Whitmer. “As soon as I get the interview with her, we’re going to go live … OK?” Musico told his audience from the driver’s seat of his car.

But Musico wasn’t the only one making videos during this period. The FBI was filming too.

Musico and his son-in-law, Joseph Morrison, had started the Wolverine Watchmen. They recruited people through Facebook and invited them to tactical trainings on land around Morrison’s home, about 30 miles west of Ann Arbor. Some of those who attended were FBI informants.

The training sessions evolved into talk of violent anti-government plots, some allegedly proposed by a man named Adam Fox, a then-37-year-old with a scraggly beard and a paunch. The talk of these plots took on urgency and detail during training trips to Ohio and Wisconsin, which were secretly paid for by the FBI. The Wolverine Watchmen discussed a proposal to “black bag,” or kidnap, politicians, though a few members of the group initially thought the idea couldn’t work. As alternatives, they discussed planting explosives at police stations or storming the state Capitol in Lansing with a 200-man force equipped with machine guns and sniper rifles. But Fox still allegedly pushed for the “black bag,” and the plan was very specific: They’d kidnap Whitmer, whom Fox referred to as “this tyrant bitch,” and then try her for treason in their very own kangaroo court. “Snatch and grab, man,” Fox told some members of the group. “Grab the fuckin’ governor. Just grab the bitch, because at that point, we do that, dude — it’s over.”

Protesters against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, amid shutdown orders for the coronavirus pandemic, rally on the steps of the Michigan State Capitol in Lansing, Mich., on May 14, 2020.

Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

In the summer of 2020, after Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” in response to pandemic restrictions and protests erupted in the state, about a dozen members of the Wolverine Watchmen began surveilling Whitmer’s vacation home. They came up with an audacious plan: Bomb the lead car in the governor’s security detail, kidnap her, and then use explosives to destroy a nearby bridge, cutting off any police officers trying to mount a rescue. But the group’s ability to pull off this “Rambo”-style plan was questionable, even to the Wolverine Watchmen themselves. Fox, whom the government would later describe as the group’s ringleader, had so much trouble remembering the street number of Whitmer’s vacation home that the others called him “Captain Autism.” (Fox has claimed that he was often high on marijuana during this time.)

Lawyers for Fox and his co-defendants have argued that there would not have been a plot to kidnap Whitmer were it not for the FBI’s financing and encouragement through its use of undercover agents and at a least a dozen paid informants.

And so, as the trial of the Wolverine Watchmen begins, a federal jury in Michigan will grapple with a question that has been a staple of similar cases involving alleged supporters of ISIS or Al Qaeda: Was this threat real or manufactured by the FBI?

The post Echoes of FBI Entrapment Haunt Failed Plot to Kidnap Gretchen Whitmer appeared first on The Intercept.

Until late 2019, members of the unit — known as the Rapid Intervention Battalion or by its French acronym BIR — conducted the missions against groups U.S. officials designated as VEOs, or violent extremist organizations, to “degrade” their ability to “conduct terrorist acts against U.S. interests,” according to a formerly secret Pentagon document obtained through a public records request. At least some of the operations were “planned and coordinated … with input from U.S. counterparts,” the memorandum notes.

Those operations occurred under a program intended to carry out counterterrorism missions with minimum deployment of U.S. personnel. 127e programs are named after the budgetary authority that allows U.S. Special Operations forces including Army Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and Marine Raiders to use foreign military units as proxies. They differ from other forms of assistance, training, or equipping of foreign forces because they allow the U.S. to employ foreign troops to do its own bidding — often in countries where the U.S. is not officially at war and the American public does not know the military is operating. In some cases, U.S. troops even engage in combat.

A heavily redacted Pentagon document reveals details about the U.S. partnership with a unit of the Cameroonian military known as the Rapid Intervention Battalion, or by its French acronym BIR.

Image: Obtained by The Intercept

The termination of the program came eight months after the U.S. announced a drastic cut to security assistance to Cameroon, and one of the operations mentioned in the document took place nearly a month after that announcement. Those cuts followed revelations by The Intercept and Amnesty International of torture and murder by the BIR at a military base frequented by American personnel, as well as a drumbeat of subsequent reports of human rights abuses, including the cold-blooded execution of women and children.

Following that reporting, “there were discussions about the unsustainability of the Americans’ military involvement in Cameroon,” said Arrey Ntui, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group. It was “surprising,” he added, that U.S. assistance was not cut off for several months after evidence of those abuses became public. The BIR continues to receive support from the United States through other security assistance programs.

It’s unclear how many missions BIR forces operating under the aegis of the 127e program may have carried out in 2019 but that partnership was one of 20 active 127e programs that year, according to the document, which also reveals that partnerships were underway in Africa, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific region at the time. Previous reporting, including by The Intercept, documented the existence of 127e operations in multiple African countries, but the memo offers the first official confirmation that the authority was employed in the Indo-Pacific Command area of operations.

The White House, the Pentagon, and Africa Command would not comment on the classified program. The State Department declined to comment specifically on the use of the 127e authority in Cameroon, and the Cameroonian Embassy in the United States did not respond to requests for comment.

U.S assistance to Cameroon’s military was intended to support its fight against the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, and later the Islamic State’s West Africa affiliate, in the far north of the country. But in recent years, Cameroon’s government has also fought its own war against Anglophone separatists in the northwest and southwest regions. Some Cameroonian troops previously operating in the north have redeployed to the Anglophone regions, raising questions about the indirect U.S. involvement in a conflict well outside the scope of its stated objectives.

The revelations about the 127e program in Cameroon come as pressure mounts on the U.S. to cut ties with its longtime ally. In a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, shared exclusively with The Intercept, Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; Sara Jacobs, D-Calif.; and Karen Bass, D-Calif., this week asked both officials to clarify the status of U.S. support for the BIR.

“We are particularly concerned about whether U.S. security assistance may be contributing to serious human rights abuses,” the legislators wrote. “We are particularly concerned in U.S. support for the Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR), some elements of which have been accused by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, among others, as having been directly implicated in atrocities in the Anglophone region. As you are aware, the State Department has reprogrammed some security assistance since 2019, but our understanding is that other assistance — including to the BIR — continues.”

The 127e authority, “127-echo” in military parlance, is exempt from a safeguard required of other U.S. programs supporting foreign forces known as the “Leahy law”: the scrutiny of recipients’ human rights records named after Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. A legislative effort to close that loophole by requiring 127e partners to undergo human rights vetting made it into the House version of the annual defense bill last year but was cut during negotiations with the Senate.

Critics of the 127e authority warn that it allows the Defense Department to essentially bypass oversight. Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute, a grassroots-funded U.S. foreign policy think tank, described 127e as an effort by the Pentagon to find “a different way to wage war.” Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and former legal adviser to the State Department, echoed that sentiment. “The concern is that the executive branch may be sliding into war,” he said, “without adequate consideration by Congress and the public about whether use of military force is justified and adequate.”

Assisting Abuse

U.S. officials have touted 127e as crucial to conducting missions in areas otherwise inaccessible to U.S. troops. “These are hand-selected partner forces. We train them and we equip them. They specifically go after high-value counterterrorism targets. And they are used to support U.S. objectives and achieve U.S. aims,” retired Army Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who served at U.S. Africa Command, or AFRICOM, and led Special Operations Command Africa, or SOCAFRICA, told The Intercept in an interview.

Codenamed “Obsidian Cobra,” according to Bolduc, the 127e program in Cameroon was approved by then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in September 2014 and ran alongside a series of efforts to assist Cameroon’s fight against Boko Haram and the local Islamic State affiliate. Some 300 U.S. military personnel were also deployed to Cameroon, where they remained until early 2020.

U.S. support for the Cameroonian military faced growing scrutiny in recent years as graphic evidence of atrocities committed by the BIR and other units came to light in a series of reports by human rights groups and journalists. The U.S. State Department has also mentioned allegations of BIR abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, or extrajudicial killings in every annual report on Cameroon since 2010.

The Defense Department made a concerted effort to continue funding Cameroonian forces but the reports of their abuses became impossible to ignore, according to a U.S. official familiar with the deliberations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. While he did not specifically address the 127e program, the official said that the battle had less to do with abuses by specific units receiving U.S. funding and more with the overall relationship with Cameroon. “The bigger fight was on the broader policy issue,” he told The Intercept. “As a legal matter, AFRICOM was saying that they were in the clear. But as a policy matter the Cameroonian government was allowing these abuses to happen, so how could we keep working with them?”

In early 2019, when the U.S. announced that it would withhold $17 million in planned security assistance to Cameroon, AFRICOM chief Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser told Congress the Cameroonians “have been a good partner with us counterterrorism-wise” but conceded that U.S. officials couldn’t “neglect the fact that … there are alleged atrocities in what’s gone on there.”

Since then, the House and Senate have passed separate resolutions on atrocities in Cameroon. In 2020, the Senate called on U.S. officials to ensure that U.S. training and equipment was not being used to facilitate human rights abuses in the Anglophone regions.

But U.S. tax dollars continue to support the BIR. A State Department spokesperson confirmed that since 2019, the U.S. has aided the unit through the maintenance and operation of “command-and-control equipment,” training in the coordination of air and ground operations, and assistance to maintain and operate drones. The spokesperson said that “subunits within the BIR” that have received funding since 2019 “were formally vetted before receiving assistance to ensure they are not credibly implicated in a gross violation of human rights.”

Meanwhile, new reports of atrocities committed by the Cameroonian military in the Anglophone regions continue to emerge. Last December, BIR troops conducted house-to-house searches in Chomba village, accusing residents of harboring separatists and threatening to kill them, according to Human Rights Watch. The soldiers disappeared four residents who were later found dead, with gunshot wounds to the head. The same month, Cameroonian soldiers killed a 3-year-old girl and injured a 17-year-old girl in the town of Bamenda. Members of the BIR have also been accused of rape and the looting and burning of homes.

“They kill randomly, they arrest randomly, they arrest children, they open fire on the civilian population,” Emma Osong, an Southern Cameroonian-American human rights advocate and founder of Women for Permanent Peace and Justice, a victims-based organization, said of the BIR. “The crimes are piling up. … And they are being done by a military whose funding partly comes from America.”

Partnerships with abusive foreign forces like the BIR underscore the need for the U.S. to evaluate every unit it works with, said Jacobs, the California representative who led last year’s effort to extend human rights vetting to 127e recipients. In addition to the moral imperative, such evaluations would further the Pentagon’s stated counterterrorism objectives, she emphasized, as abuses by security forces against their own citizens are “one of the drivers of violent extremism.” Vetting “needs to be combined with sustained congressional oversight,” she added.

Defense officials sometimes vet 127e recipients even though they are not required to by law, Jacobs told The Intercept. “The problem is that as of now, the decision to do this vetting is completely up to DOD,” she said, referring to Department of Defense. “It should not be up to any federal agency to hold itself or its partners accountable.”

The official with knowledge of internal deliberations around support to Cameroon said he believed the units that received U.S. assistance had “cleared vetting” but that it took sustained public pressure to get officials to take a closer look. “The vetting process is completely a function of how hard they’re looking,” he said. “Once they started looking harder, you saw the restrictions kick in.”

Vetting also has its limitations, said a former defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations. “There’s always the risk that something awful will happen, that one of the people that we’ve supported, one of these foreign individuals who are participating in our operation, does something either immoral or illegal,” the official said.

Cameroonian soldiers from the Rapid Intervention Brigade, or the BIR, tell a young boy to stay back while on patrol in Kerawa, Cameroon, on March 16, 2016.

Photo: Joe Penney/Reuters

Partners in Crime

The document obtained by The Intercept mentions two 127e operations by date: February 6 and March 6, 2019.

On February 6, 2019, BIR forces attacked a market in the southwest region of Cameroon — one of the hot spots of the Anglophone conflict — and killed up to 10 men, according to a Human Rights Watch investigation. There is no indication that the killings were committed by BIR troops associated with the 127e program, but the timing raises questions about U.S. responsibility for the actions of members of a unit it was actively engaged with.

“Anytime the U.S. works in tandem with forces known to commit abuses, as is the case for the BIR in Cameroon, it risks complicity in those abuses,” Ilaria Allegrozzi, senior Central Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, told The Intercept. “If the 127e program has allowed the U.S. to exercise control over the BIR during abusive operations, then the U.S. is also liable for those abuses.”

U.S. forces have also taken part in combat in Cameroon under the 127e authority. In 2017, Navy SEALs accompanied Cameroonian soldiers to the outskirts of a compound flying an ISIS flag and called on the occupants to come out, according to an account, attributed to “U.S. officials,” in the footnotes of a 2021 report by the International Crisis Group. When a man emerged carrying an AK-47, a Cameroonian soldier attempted to fire on him, but his weapon jammed. A SEAL observing from a distance opened fire and killed the man.

Bolduc, the SOCAFRICA commander until June 2017, said that the mission was run as part of the 127e program. He defended the killing on the grounds that it constituted “collective self-defense of a partner force” — the same justification AFRICOM frequently uses to justify airstrikes in Somalia.

The episode is indicative of the close involvement of U.S. personnel in some 127e operations. The 127e authority first faced significant scrutiny after four U.S. soldiers were killed by Islamic State militants during a 2017 ambush in Niger. U.S. troops have also died on other 127e missions, the former senior defense official said.

The U.S. is often deeply involved in all aspects of 127e operations’ planning and sometimes execution, said a former senior intelligence official, who also requested anonymity because the program is classified. “There is intelligence sharing, there is continuous advising on how to mission plan. In some places, we are embedding with them. We are actually going on the missions, we are essentially in their ear.”

Testifying before Congress in 2019, Gen. Richard D. Clarke, the head of U.S. Special Operations Command, said that 127e programs “directly resulted in the capture or killing of thousands of terrorists, disrupted terrorist networks and activities, and denied terrorists operating space across a wide range of operating environments, at a fraction of the cost of other programs.”

The basis for Clarke’s statement is unclear, however. Ken McGraw, a Special Operations Command spokesperson, told The Intercept that the command does not have figures on those captured or killed during 127e missions and declined to clarify Clarke’s statement, citing the classified nature of 127e. It is not known how many foreign forces and civilians have been killed in these operations.

A U.S. Marine assesses members of the Cameroonian rapid response brigade during a training exercise in Douala, Cameroon, on March 22, 2017.

Photo: U.S. Navy

Shifting Fronts

U.S. officials maintain that they have not knowingly supported members of the unit who have committed atrocities. “At the time that the United States provided BIR units with assistance, the United States was not aware of credible information implicating those units in a gross violation of human rights,” the State Department spokesperson told The Intercept. “The agreements also provide, consistent with our statutory authorities, that any defense articles provided to Cameroon must be returned to the United States when they are no longer needed for the purposes for which they were furnished.”

But at least some weapons and equipment provided by the U.S. to support the Cameroonian military in counterterrorism operations have been employed in the Anglophone conflict, according to Christopher Fomunyoh, regional director for Central and West Africa at the National Democratic Institute, who testified before a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee in 2020. “That’s extremely worrying because we’re beginning to see some of the tactics and gross violations of human rights in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon that had been recorded in incidents happening in the extreme north,” Fumonyoh said.

Members of the BIR who had been stationed in the north, where the U.S. conducted training, were also redeployed to the northwest when the Cameroonian military opened a regional command there. While that fight is against separatist groups, the Cameroonian government began to refer to them as “terrorists,” as it did with Boko Haram and the Islamic State.

Ntui, the International Crisis Group analyst, said that the Cameroonian government’s movement of troops to the Anglophone regions is what ultimately pushed the U.S. to reduce its assistance. “The risk of Cameroon using equipment and training that had been provided for counterinsurgency in the far north was getting increasingly high.” The U.S. had asked its Cameroonian counterparts for guarantees that the assistance wouldn’t be used outside its intended scope, Ntui added. “But that is simply impractical.”

Asked about this very issue in 2018, an AFRICOM spokesperson said that “Cameroon is a sovereign nation and can transfer personnel between units.”

Christopher Roberts, a political science instructor at Canada’s University of Calgary who tracks foreign assistance to the Cameroonian military, said he “would be shocked if the Americans ever did any planning for any operations in the Anglophone region, but I wouldn’t be shocked if the Cameroonian government used both, obviously, the training, but also some of the material support that they were given to fight Boko Haram and redirected it.”

Roberts found that the sale of U.S.-made helicopters to Cameroon continued after U.S. assistance was scaled back and that aircraft supplied to the Cameroonian government as part of its fight against Boko Haram were being used in the Anglophone region instead. Armored vehicles, munitions, small arms, and surveillance drones originally intended for the north of the country were redeployed there, Roberts and Cameroon researcher Billy Burton previously pointed out.

According to the document obtained by The Intercept, the weapons and gear the U.S. had provided to the BIR were “recovered” and placed in storage or transferred to other 127e programs. At least some of the equipment provided to Cameroon through a different partnership program, however, was unaccounted for, according to a 2020 report by the State Department’s inspector general. Officials in charge of the partnership, the report noted, “were also not able to confirm if the equipment was being used as intended.”

The post Even After Acknowledging Abuses, the U.S. Continued to Employ Notorious Proxy Forces in Cameroon appeared first on The Intercept.

Yashin made the journey to testify, in a makeshift courtroom inside the prison, as one of 28 witnesses for the defense in the latest trial of Alexey Navalny, the anti-corruption activist who was jailed last year for failing to check in with a parole officer while in a coma after being poisoned with a nerve agent.

Russians who have the technical skills to use a virtual private network can evade the block on Twitter, and Yashin later tweeted a photograph of himself testifying across from Navalny.

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It was a sobering image of two men who had been, a decade earlier, among the leaders of a series of protests attended by hundreds of thousands of Russians who demanded change and chanted “Putin’s a thief!” and “Russia without Putin!” Those protests were organized, promoted, and documented on social networks that are now officially banned in Russia — making it harder for opponents of the war in Ukraine to coordinate demonstrations and to encourage one another by spreading images of resistance.

At the start of that protest wave in late 2011, for instance, when Navalny and Yashin were arrested — arm-in-arm, chanting “One for all and all for one!” — video of their detention went viral on YouTube, and Navalny even posted a cheery image from a police van on Instagram of the detainees around him celebrating their defiance.

A screenshot from the Instagram account of Alexey Navalny showing the interior of a police van following his arrest at a protest in Moscow on Dec. 5, 2011.

Prosecutors in the prison trial now accuse Navalny of having created his Anti-Corruption Foundation not to expose looting of state funds by Russian officials — like Putin cronies Dmitry Medvedev and Yury Chaika — but as a ruse to solicit donations from the public and embezzle the money. If convicted of this charge, and contempt of court, Navalny’s time in jail could be extended by 15 years.

According to Mediazona, a reader-supported news site focused on the Russian court system and prisons, Yashin told the court he is a fan of the investigative reports posted on YouTube by Navalny’s team and said it was perfectly normal to ask viewers of the foundation’s work to support it. He added that Navalny lived modestly in Moscow before he was jailed. (Mediazona, which is now blocked in Russia for reporting on the war in Ukraine, was founded in 2014 by Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot after they spent 18 months in jail for performing an anti-Putin protest song in Moscow’s main Orthodox cathedral before the 2012 presidential election.)

Most of the other defense witnesses have been donors to the Anti-Corruption Foundation, known by its Russian acronym FBK, or supporters of Navalny’s political campaigns, who said that they found his work compelling and were not worried that they had been swindled.

Last year, Navalny’s organization brought more than 100,000 protesters to the streets following his arrest and released an investigative report on YouTube that accused Putin of building a lavish palace with looted state funds; the video was viewed more than 120 million times. The government declared Navalny’s foundation a banned extremist group, and his aides were forced into exile to continue their work. Yashin was also barred from running for office in Moscow due to his support for Navalny.

It is not clear how many Russians can now access Navalny’s messages on social networks, but he has urged protesters to continue to take to the streets to oppose the war in Ukraine. Thousands have done so in recent days, despite the near certainty of being arrested and brutalized by the police, many chanting “No to war!” and “Ukraine is not our enemy!”

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— ???? ???? (@IlyaYashin) March 6, 2022

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As Navalny’s spokesperson, Kira Yarmysh, noted on Twitter, a young woman was dragged away by police on Tuesday in St. Petersburg just for holding up a sign that read: “Stop sending our soldiers to death.”

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According to OVD-Info, a human rights group that monitors political persecution in Russia, more than 13,000 protesters have been arrested in 147 Russian cities since the beginning of the anti-war protests two weeks ago.

Because YouTube has not been blocked in Russia, daily livestreams and frequent updates on the war, produced by Navalny’s team in a temporary studio in neighboring Lithuania, reach hundreds of thousands or millions of viewers.

The latest open-source investigation from Navalny’s exiled team, published last week, focuses on the alleged corruption of Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker of the upper house of Russia’s parliament, whose signature is on the authorization for the use of Russian military force for “peacekeeping” in Ukraine. The report, which presents evidence that links Matviyenko’s family to a massive seaside villa in Italy, has been viewed more than 4 million times already.

The report begins with Maria Pevchikh, head of the foundation’s investigative unit, telling viewers what they will not hear on Russian state television: “Russia is at war with Ukraine. The senseless, unimaginable war has been going on for a week now. Russia attacked Ukraine. Russia is bombing Ukrainian cities.”

Matviyenko was sanctioned by the United States last month as a member of Russia’s security council, and she has been on a European Union list of Russian officials subject to a visa ban and asset freeze since 2014, when she supported the annexation of Crimea. Given that, it is not clear why, as the Ukrainian anti-corruption activist Daria Kaleniuk asked, the villa was not seized years ago.

Why this villa was not seized yet? https://t.co/748EwbmAte

— Daria Kaleniuk (@dkaleniuk) March 8, 2022

After he returned home from testifying at Navalny’s trial, Yashin released a YouTube video of his own, in which he said that he had decided to stay in Russia and would keep speaking out against the war. “I will continue to call a war a war,” Yashin explained on Instagram, signaling his intention to defy Russia’s new military censorship law, which criminalizes accurate descriptions of the invasion of Ukraine as an act of war. “If I am destined to be behind bars because I opposed the war during the bombing of Kyiv and Kharkiv, I will accept it with dignity,” Yashin added. “I will wear this prison term with pride, like a medal.”

In late February, Yashin marked the seventh anniversary of the assassination of another opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov, by laying a bouquet of roses on a bridge just outside the Kremlin walls. Yashin’s flowers were placed in the spot where, on the night of February 27, 2015, he had stared in disbelief at the body of his friend and colleague Nemtsov, a vocal critic of Putin who was assassinated as he prepared to publish a report about Russia’s then-covert military presence in eastern Ukraine.

When Nemtsov’s report — called, simply, “Putin. War.” — was published after his death in 2015, his investigation revealed that at least 220 Russian soldiers had been killed fighting on behalf of separatists in Ukraine, despite official lies that Russia was not involved in the war.

The day before Nemtsov was gunned down, he had lamented to the Financial Times that Putin’s crackdown following the street protests in 2011 and 2012 had shattered the momentum for change as many activists were forced into exile or jail. “Three years ago, we were an opposition,” Nemtsov said. “Now we are no more than dissidents.”

The post Russia’s Shattered Opposition Fights to Make Its Voice Heard on Ukraine appeared first on The Intercept.