The involvement of President Joe Biden’s nominee to head the U.S. Bureau of Land Management in what U.S. Sen. John Barrasso described as an “eco-terrorist operation” should be cause to withdraw her nomination, Barrasso said.
Barrasso said a recent discovery of activities by Tracy Stone-Manning linked to a plan to embed spikes in trees that were targeted for harvest should lead to her being removed from consideration for the post.
“Tracy Stone-Manning collaborated with eco-terrorists who had booby-trapped trees with metal spikes,” Barrasso wrote on Twitter Monday morning. “She mailed the threatening letter for them and she was part of the cover-up.”
This was in reference to Stone-Manning’s involvement in a 1989 incident in Idaho, when individuals placed metal spikes in trees in a national forest to prevent them from being sold in a timber sale.
“Tracy Stone-Manning lied to the Senate (Energy and Natural Resources) Committee by claiming the tree spiking was ‘alleged’ & that she was never investigated,” Barrasso said on social media Monday. “Now, we have confirmation that neither of those things are true. @POTUS must withdraw her nomination.”
According to Fox News, Stone-Manning was granted immunity in the incident in exchange for testifying that she retyped and sent an anonymous and threatening letter to the U.S. Forest Service on behalf of John P. Blount, her former roommate and friend.
“This investigator has confirmed what I have been saying,” Barrasso also wrote on social media Monday, linking to an article about the BLM nominee from E&E News, which covers energy and environmental issues. “Tracy Stone-Manning collaborated with eco-terrorists who had booby-trapped trees with metal spikes. She mailed the threatening letter for them and she was part of the cover-up.”
Barrasso is a ranking member on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee and has been outspoken about Stone-Manning’s ties to the incident. He has said before that her involvement with the environmental group Earth First should disqualifying her for the BLM post.
Stone-Manning eventually testified against two activist friends, Blount and Jeffrey Fairchild, both of whom were later convicted of embedding spikes in hundreds of trees in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest in an effort to block a 1989 timber sale, according to E&E News. Court records indicated she had no knowledge of the tree spiking.
Stone-Manning is a longtime Montana government official and current senior adviser for conservation policy at the National Wildlife Federation.
