This has got to be one of my favorite stories. It is too rare these days that public officials are directly held to account. The court date for Rey is set for Tuesday.
Agriculture chief may face jail time
As the story illustrates, and we’ve gone over before, Rey spent much time with disgraced Sen. Larry Craig and as a former timber lobbyist before being appointed undersecretary for natural resources and agriculture by the Bush Administration. Rey moved to privatize your public land, dismantle the legal safeguards for wild places, and so much more.
Although I am skeptical about the possibility that Rey will indeed be thrown behind bars for this particular contempt, he should be – the lawlessness and public land profiteering personified by this man ought be reprimanded, he’d make a fine example.
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Brian Ertz
I attended day one of the trial. Started at 1:15 and Judge Molloy recessed at 4:00. Continued tomorrow at 2:15. The FS has a list of 8 witnesses including Rey who was the first to testify. He apologized so many times, I lost count and actually admitted “we dropped the ball” which was in reference to them not notifying the Court that it was going to take longer than they anticipated. The defense seemed to be laying the blame on NMFS and USFWS for not doing the research in the required time frame, but what had Molloy upset was that they didn’t communicate that to the court.
That’s it…..3 very boring hours and Rey is still a free man. Damn!
They were in the middle of the 4th witness when it was recessed.
is the decision about whether he gets incarcerated over ?
Brian…..I think that decision will be made tomorrow or even later. It’s difficult to read whether or not Judge Molloy is buying into this.
I’m going to pass on tomorrow’s hearing and go fishing.