theintercept--2020-07-27--Rep. Lori Trahan Lied About Campaign Funds. The House Ethics Committee Cleared Her Anyway.

the independent Office of Congressional Ethics released a report concluding that there was “ substantial reason ” to believe that freshman Rep. Lori Trahan had broken campaign finance laws in the final days of her tight Democratic primary in Massachusetts .
OCE then kicked it over to the House Ethics Committee , which is run by a bipartisan panel of Trahan ’ s colleagues .
They ’ ve now concluded their own investigation , with a starkly different finding : Trahan was cleared — despite not having cooperated with the OCE investigation nor providing key documentation to support her claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hotly competitive primary for Massachusetts ’ 3rd Congressional District , in the Boston suburbs , which she ultimately won by just 155 votes .
In the final days of the campaign , Trahan had deposited $ 300,000 into her coffers that was classified as a personal loan , which she used to launch a TV blitz that , given the narrow margin , most likely swung the election .
By the time Trahan filed a personal financial statement , her records suggested that she did not have enough assets to have been able @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as revealed by a Boston Globe investigation .
Where , then , had the money come from ?
Trahan ’ s critics floated the possibility that her wealthy husband ’ s companies had financed her last-minute surge , a charge that Trahan called not just preposterous , but sexist .
She was asked about the money at a town hall last March , in the wake of the Globe report .
“ The suggestion that I did not have the personal resources to make that loan to my campaign is just inaccurate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a lot of narratives you want to change when you are taking on a run like this , and you ’ re going back to Congress as one of those 131 women , and that ’ s one of them , right ?
That women can start successful businesses , they can earn income , they can have affordable day care , they can get paid the same as men who are doing the same job , and they can make a loan that they can afford to their campaign.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ disclosure in spring 2019 was revealed , everything would be cleared up .
Alison King , from NBC Boston , put the question to her directly a month later .
“ Can you categorically deny that your husband helped beyond the $ 2,700 allowed by law ?
” she asked .
“ Yeah , look , ” Trahan said , “ the suggestion that I personally did not have the funds is completely inaccurate.
” It is now clear that Trahan was lying .
What was ultimately revealed , after a series of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in legal advice , was that her husband had shifted assets out of companies he owned into a joint checking account which was then quickly deposited into Trahan ’ s congressional campaign .
That ’ s not what Trahan ’ s critics are claiming — that is now her own story .
Yet , earlier this month , the Ethics Committee cleared Trahan by finding that , while the loan had indeed been made out of funds from her husband ’ s companies , doing so was legal because a prenuptial agreement stipulated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Trahan ’ s financial disclosure , however , lists all of the assets her husband used to make the loan as “ SP , ” for spouse , rather than “ JT , ” for joint , as she lists other joint property .
And the prenup , in fact , stipulates that separate property will remain separate and that “ each party waives , discharges , and releases all right , title , and interest in and to the separate property that the other party now owns or acquires after the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from the proceeds of any separate property now owned , including but not limited to any real property which either party may acquire with funds derived from the proceeds of his or her own separate property.
” But the prenup also says : “ All wages , salary , and income of each party earned or received during marriage , together with all property purchased with such wages , salary and income , shall also be marital property.
” But even if the committee granted that the funds were indeed jointly owned , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ company that was not subject to the prenup .
A $ 50,000 loan made to the campaign by Trahan on June 30 , 2018 originated with a company owned by her husband , DCT Development .
DCT Development was founded prior to their 2007 marriage and not listed in the prenup as joint property .
That was an oversight , Trahan said .
“ According to Representative Trahan , she and Mr. Trahan intended DCT Development , Granite Rock Businesses , and the income he received from those entities to be marital property @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not provide the Committee with any documentary evidence to support her explanation , ” wrote the Ethics Committee in its final report .
Federal campaign finance law states that a spouse can not contribute more than the legal maximum ( at the time , $ 2,700 ) .
Some of the assets used by Trahan ’ s husband were not his alone .
On April 2 , 2018 , the committee report reveals , Mass Eagle Development LLC deposited $ 100,000 into David Trahan ’ s personal account .
He lists himself as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Lori Trahan ’ s financial disclosures ( which list it as David Trahan ’ s separate property ) .
On August 21 , David Trahan transferred $ 200,000 to the joint checking account with his wife .
A few weeks earlier , he had drawn $ 180,900 from Middlesex Land Holdings LLC and $ 110,000 from Poplar Hill Development LLC .
He lists himself as a half-owner of Poplar Hill .
The ethics committee noted in its report that those companies are not listed as separate property in the prenup and therefore @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unanswered is the question of whether they were purchased from proceeds of his other separate property , which could render it off limits , or whether the withdrawals count as income that becomes a joint asset .
In any event , the argument was enough for the committee to clear her .
Trahan ’ s argument about the prenup came after she spent an eye-popping amount of money on the top Democratic campaign finance firm , Perkins Coie .
Federal Election Commission records show that the firm has done more than $ 400,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congresswoman Trahan fully cooperated with the Ethics Committee ’ s inquiry and has provided detailed documentation which supports the Committee ’ s findings , ” said a spokesperson for Trahan .
“ The Republicans and Democrats on the Committee unanimously upheld what she has said all along : that the allegations against her were without merit.
” Trahan has little plausible deniability as to campaign finance law — she wrote it .
She was chief of staff to former Rep. Marty Meehan , who was the lead Democratic sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act @ @ @ @ @ @ @ staffer , I was proud to work on the historic campaign finance reform legislation , Shays-Meehan , ” Trahan said in a 2019 release .
As her campaign owes her and her husband $ 300,000 , Trahan , a member of both the business-friendly New Democrats and the Congressional Progressive Caucus , has been an aggressive fundraiser — apparently breaking her commitment to not accept corporate PAC money by accepting $ 4,500 from the PACs of corporate lobbying firms .
Regarding the donations from the corporate lobbying firm PACs , Trahan ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrow definition created by End Citizens United .
“ The Congresswoman does not accept contributions from political action committees set up by for-profit corporations , ” they said .
“ She will continue to follow End Citizen United ’ s standards for rejecting corporate PAC contributions.
” “ Trahan gave a number of conflicting and inconsistent responses ” to queries from the Boston Globe , said Brendan Fischer , federal reform director at the Campaign Legal Center , “ and ultimately it appeared it came from an account individually owned by her husband @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Ethics Committee find that Trahan did violate the law , but the Ethics Committee cleared Trahan .
A big part of that is that the House Ethics Committee is made up of other members of Congress and there ’ s often an aversion to members of Congress holding other members accountable for ethics violations.
” “ Throughout this process , there seems to be one reported error after another , ” added Fischer .
“ Both the campaign finance and financial disclosure report were amended multiple times .
The public statements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ LLCs not being included was an error .
Taken together there have been an awful lot of errors.
” Beth Rotman , national director of Money in Politics and Ethics for Common Cause , argued that the key issue with Trahan ’ s conduct was that the public had no idea about this issue until after the primary and general election were concluded .
“ Common Cause sees this as a public disclosure issue that has to be done in real time for everyday Americans to evaluate somebody running for office , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here .
To figure all of this out many months later is a loss for the public .
In this case , delayed disclosure equated to nondisclosure.
” “ It ’ s very challenging to have an in-house Ethics Committee do the investigation , ” Rotman continued , “ as they can absolutely bend over backwards to see themselves in the same shoes as the person they are evaluating .
They all find the campaign finance laws burdensome .
It ’ s very difficult to ask the legislature to police itself when it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the OCE are not burdened by subconscious awareness where they could see themselves making the same mistake .
”

Last December, the independent Office of Congressional Ethics released a report concluding that there was “substantial reason” to believe that freshman Rep. Lori Trahan had broken campaign finance laws in the final days of her tight Democratic primary in Massachusetts. OCE then kicked it over to the House Ethics Committee, which is run by a bipartisan panel of Trahan’s colleagues. They’ve now concluded their own investigation, with a starkly different finding: Trahan was cleared — despite not having cooperated with the OCE investigation nor providing key documentation to support her claims.
In 2018, Trahan faced a hotly competitive primary for Massachusetts’ 3rd Congressional District, in the Boston suburbs, which she ultimately won by just 155 votes. In the final days of the campaign, Trahan had deposited $300,000 into her coffers that was classified as a personal loan, which she used to launch a TV blitz that, given the narrow margin, most likely swung the election.
By the time Trahan filed a personal financial statement, her records suggested that she did not have enough assets to have been able to make the loan to her campaign, as revealed by a Boston Globe investigation. Where, then, had the money come from?
Trahan had deposited $300,000 into her coffers that was classified as a personal loan, which she used to launch a TV blitz that, given the narrow margin, most likely swung the election.
Trahan’s critics floated the possibility that her wealthy husband’s companies had financed her last-minute surge, a charge that Trahan called not just preposterous, but sexist. She was asked about the money at a town hall last March, in the wake of the Globe report. “The suggestion that I did not have the personal resources to make that loan to my campaign is just inaccurate,” she said. “There’s a lot of narratives you want to change when you are taking on a run like this, and you’re going back to Congress as one of those 131 women, and that’s one of them, right? That women can start successful businesses, they can earn income, they can have affordable day care, they can get paid the same as men who are doing the same job, and they can make a loan that they can afford to their campaign.” She said that when her next financial disclosure in spring 2019 was revealed, everything would be cleared up.
Alison King, from NBC Boston, put the question to her directly a month later. “Can you categorically deny that your husband helped beyond the $2,700 allowed by law?” she asked.
“Yeah, look,” Trahan said, “the suggestion that I personally did not have the funds is completely inaccurate.”
It is now clear that Trahan was lying. What was ultimately revealed, after a series of corrections made by Trahan and $400,000 in legal advice, was that her husband had shifted assets out of companies he owned into a joint checking account which was then quickly deposited into Trahan’s congressional campaign. That’s not what Trahan’s critics are claiming — that is now her own story.
Yet, earlier this month, the Ethics Committee cleared Trahan by finding that, while the loan had indeed been made out of funds from her husband’s companies, doing so was legal because a prenuptial agreement stipulated that such funds were joint marital property. Trahan’s financial disclosure, however, lists all of the assets her husband used to make the loan as “SP,” for spouse, rather than “JT,” for joint, as she lists other joint property. And the prenup, in fact, stipulates that separate property will remain separate and that “each party waives, discharges, and releases all right, title, and interest in and to the separate property that the other party now owns or acquires after the execution of this Agreement, or acquires from the proceeds of any separate property now owned, including but not limited to any real property which either party may acquire with funds derived from the proceeds of his or her own separate property.” But the prenup also says: “All wages, salary, and income of each party earned or received during marriage, together with all property purchased with such wages, salary and income, shall also be marital property.”
But even if the committee granted that the funds were indeed jointly owned, part of the loan came from a company that was not subject to the prenup. A $50,000 loan made to the campaign by Trahan on June 30, 2018 originated with a company owned by her husband, DCT Development. DCT Development was founded prior to their 2007 marriage and not listed in the prenup as joint property. That was an oversight, Trahan said. “According to Representative Trahan, she and Mr. Trahan intended DCT Development, Granite Rock Businesses, and the income he received from those entities to be marital property under the agreement. Representative Trahan did not provide the Committee with any documentary evidence to support her explanation,” wrote the Ethics Committee in its final report. Federal campaign finance law states that a spouse cannot contribute more than the legal maximum (at the time, $2,700).
Some of the assets used by Trahan’s husband were not his alone. On April 2, 2018, the committee report reveals, Mass Eagle Development LLC deposited $100,000 into David Trahan’s personal account. He lists himself as just a one-third owner of Eagle Development in Lori Trahan’s financial disclosures (which list it as David Trahan’s separate property).
On August 21, David Trahan transferred $200,000 to the joint checking account with his wife. A few weeks earlier, he had drawn $180,900 from Middlesex Land Holdings LLC and $110,000 from Poplar Hill Development LLC. He lists himself as a half-owner of Poplar Hill.
The ethics committee noted in its report that those companies are not listed as separate property in the prenup and therefore can be considered joint property, but unanswered is the question of whether they were purchased from proceeds of his other separate property, which could render it off limits, or whether the withdrawals count as income that becomes a joint asset. In any event, the argument was enough for the committee to clear her.
Trahan’s argument about the prenup came after she spent an eye-popping amount of money on the top Democratic campaign finance firm, Perkins Coie. Federal Election Commission records show that the firm has done more than $400,000 worth of work for her.
“Congresswoman Trahan fully cooperated with the Ethics Committee’s inquiry and has provided detailed documentation which supports the Committee’s findings,” said a spokesperson for Trahan. “The Republicans and Democrats on the Committee unanimously upheld what she has said all along: that the allegations against her were without merit.”
Trahan has little plausible deniability as to campaign finance law — she wrote it. She was chief of staff to former Rep. Marty Meehan, who was the lead Democratic sponsor of the McCain-Feingold Act in the House. “As a staffer, I was proud to work on the historic campaign finance reform legislation, Shays-Meehan,” Trahan said in a 2019 release.
The House Ethics Committee declined to comment.
As her campaign owes her and her husband $300,000, Trahan, a member of both the business-friendly New Democrats and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been an aggressive fundraiser — apparently breaking her commitment to not accept corporate PAC money by accepting $4,500 from the PACs of corporate lobbying firms.
Regarding the donations from the corporate lobbying firm PACs, Trahan’s spokesperson argued that they fit within the narrow definition created by End Citizens United.
“To figure all of this out many months later is a loss for the public. In this case, delayed disclosure equated to nondisclosure.”
“The Congresswoman does not accept contributions from political action committees set up by for-profit corporations,” they said. “She will continue to follow End Citizen United’s standards for rejecting corporate PAC contributions.”
“Trahan gave a number of conflicting and inconsistent responses” to queries from the Boston Globe, said Brendan Fischer, federal reform director at the Campaign Legal Center, “and ultimately it appeared it came from an account individually owned by her husband. The Office of Congressional Ethics recommended that the Ethics Committee find that Trahan did violate the law, but the Ethics Committee cleared Trahan. A big part of that is that the House Ethics Committee is made up of other members of Congress and there’s often an aversion to members of Congress holding other members accountable for ethics violations.”
“Throughout this process, there seems to be one reported error after another,” added Fischer. “Both the campaign finance and financial disclosure report were amended multiple times. The public statements changed over time the assertions that these LLCs not being included was an error. Taken together there have been an awful lot of errors.”
Beth Rotman, national director of Money in Politics and Ethics for Common Cause, argued that the key issue with Trahan’s conduct was that the public had no idea about this issue until after the primary and general election were concluded.
“Common Cause sees this as a public disclosure issue that has to be done in real time for everyday Americans to evaluate somebody running for office,” said Rotman. “The public lost here. To figure all of this out many months later is a loss for the public. In this case, delayed disclosure equated to nondisclosure.”
“It’s very challenging to have an in-house Ethics Committee do the investigation,” Rotman continued, “as they can absolutely bend over backwards to see themselves in the same shoes as the person they are evaluating. They all find the campaign finance laws burdensome. It’s very difficult to ask the legislature to police itself when it comes to campaign finance. Watchdog agencies like the OCE are not burdened by subconscious awareness where they could see themselves making the same mistake.”


theintercept--2020-07-27--No Masks, No Gloves, a Single Room for Sleeping — Detainees Describe Life In ICE Detention During th

No Masks, No Gloves, a Single Room for Sleeping — Detainees Describe Life In ICE Detention During the Pandemic

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U.S. Official Hints at Possible Plea Deal for Julian Assange
The U.S. ambassador to Australia said there could be a “resolution” to the Justice Department’s pursuit of Assange.


theintercept--2020-07-27--Letters From ICE Detainees Expose Desperate Prison Conditions Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

“ Please , help us obtain our freedom .
… It ’ s so dangerous these days , we find ourselves between life and death .
We don ’ t want to be the victims of this ruthless virus , and here , in these conditions , really it ’ s just a matter of time.
” “ I ’ m going to ask to be deported .
Because being locked in this place there ’ s no peace , not psychologically or emotionally.
” “ The fact that we are migrants doesn ’ t give them the right to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve been detained for five months in this center with my lung condition and problems with my liver .
Do you think that proper nutrition for a sick person is bread and ham every day ?
” “ I ’ ve seen things and lived things that no other person should have to live through .
They put me into quarantine to see if I was carrying Covid-19 and from there , they only took us out for 20 minutes to bathe and make a phone call … 14 days of quarantine.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eloy Detention Center , a private immigration prison in Arizona owned and operated by CoreCivic , began to write down what they were going through .
The letter writers did so despite the threat of retaliation , because , they said , people had to know what was happening .
“ You can ’ t speak freely here , ” one woman wrote .
The letters have gone out to clergy , lawyers , volunteers , and family members .
At neighboring La Palma Correctional Center , advocates collected mass letters describing horrible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reprisal by guards .
Bob Kee has visited detainees at Eloy for years and gives out his number and address to many of the people he meets .
When bimonthly community volunteer visits to the prison were suspended in early March , he got occasional phone calls from friends inside .
Their accounts of the conditions alarmed him .
He asked one woman he knew , “ Will you write me a letter , and she said , ‘ I will , ’ then two weeks later I got this big manila envelope @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advocates shared many such letters with me , on the condition that the women ’ s names not be used .
The mostly handwritten notes represent an archive of an ongoing crisis in immigration detention facilities in Arizona , where hundreds of immigrants and correctional staff have been infected with Covid-19 .
According to CoreCivic , 159 employees , or 50 percent of the total workforce at Eloy , have tested positive to date .
One correctional officer has died of the disease .
Thirty-four detainees at Eloy are currently being monitored after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; in total , 252 people held at the facility have contracted the disease .
That puts Eloy among the ICE facilities with the highest number of infections .
La Palma , which is also operated by CoreCivic , has had 105 reported cases .
The actual number may be higher : The Arizona Republic obtained internal emails saying that as of June 22 , 270 detainees at Eloy had tested positive .
CoreCivic said the figure was a typo .
The letters were mostly written in mid-June and describe a spiraling panic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the complaints were also outlined in a lawsuit lodged in early June arguing for the release of medically at-risk detainees at Eloy and La Palma : lack of medical attention and cleaning supplies , and guards reusing protective equipment and punishing people who speak out .
The problems were compounded because so many guards were infected .
The facility was so short-staffed that women — even those who were not being monitored for coronavirus symptoms — spent hours locked in their cells , denied hot food and any kind of freedom of movement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a woman who was recently released told me , they ’ d say , “ You have to protect yourselves.
” But , she said , “ we don ’ t go anywhere , we ’ re locked in a cell .
You ’ re the ones that are in the street , you ’ re the ones that have to be careful with people coming into the center .
Obviously you ’ re the ones bringing in the virus , not us.
” A spokesperson for CoreCivic , Amanda Gilchrist , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ women ’ s claims , saying : “ These are baseless allegations , and the claims simply do not reflect the affirmative , proactive measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 our facility has been taking for months .
We care deeply for our hard-working , dedicated employees , as well as individuals in our care , and we ’ re committed to their safety.
” ICE declined to comment .
Conversations with several currently detained women and with volunteers and advocates who are in touch with people still at Eloy confirmed that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have improved a bit , at least for people who aren ’ t quarantined , people remain fearful and desperate for release .
“ It ’ s still scary because what if someone is still sick ?
” one woman told me by phone this week .
“ We ’ re getting mixed together .
The other day , everyone in the unit was in the yard together.
” A Cuban asylum-seeker in Eloy was put in a section of the prison with people who had tested positive earlier this month , after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breathing .
She insisted that it was her asthma , and she responded to asthma medication , but her cellmate had tested positive , so she was forced to wait for her results with people who had been infected .
ICE has refused to grant her parole on humanitarian grounds , despite several attacks in the last month .
“ My health is not the best , ” she wrote in a letter to a local advocate in Arizona a few weeks ago .
“ My fear is I ’ ll keep having @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to give me health.
” The spread of the coronavirus at Eloy seemed inevitable to the women held there .
“ We can ’ t maintain social distancing because we have 50 women in each pod , ” one woman wrote .
“ We touch the same things , the showers , microwave , chairs , tables , telephone.
” Keeping things sanitary was difficult .
“ We had to clean the cells with shampoo as chemicals were not provided to us , ” one letter said .
Several others added that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ineffective .
Correctional officers went from pod to pod , between the areas where people who had tested positive were being held in quarantine and the rest of the prison , without changing their protective gear .
At mealtime , the food cart went between quarantined and nonquarantined areas .
Multiple guards would reuse the same gloves and other gear , giving it a spray with disinfectant between rounds , the letters allege .
Medical attention , the women said , was terrible ; there was none unless it was for Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people were afraid that if they were thought to be infected , they ’ d be put into solitary .
“ When you get sick there , the only thing they tell you is ‘ drink water , ’ and ‘ drink water , ’ and ‘ drink water , ’ or maybe ‘ take an ibuprofen and a lot of water , ’ ” one woman told me .
“ From what I ’ ve heard secondhand , you get no care when you get [ Covid-19 ] in there , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who is a community advocate for people detained in Arizona .
“ It ’ s like being in solitary.
” Multiple volunteers said they ’ d heard from people at Eloy and La Palma that even if they had symptoms , they would stay quiet about it because of how they ’ d be treated .
A man held at Eloy told Mother Jones recently that while he was sick with the virus , he was held in isolation , had his temperature checked only sporadically , and was given only Tylenol and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Setting aside the fear of contagion , women at Eloy suffered because of constant lockdowns and other deprivations because there were not enough staff .
After the first positive cases were reported in late May , “ everything seemed paralyzed during that time , no kitchen workers , no laundry workers , no maintenance , etc , ” a Mexican woman wrote .
The women were often locked in their cells for hours on end , with no access to the yard , commissary , library , telephones , or showers .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1/2 hours because there were only 2 officers for the whole unit , day and afternoon , ” the Mexican woman reported .
“ Due to lack of staff to watch us the lockdowns are more frequent and longer , ” wrote another woman .
“ Many of us suffer from anxiety and claustrophobia.
” “ They would tell us it was so we didn ’ t get infected , that it was better if we were in our cells , ” said a Cuban woman , whom I will call Julia , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ June .
She asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing her asylum case .
“ But the truth was that they didn ’ t have workers .
All the workers were sick.
” The women were told that they couldn ’ t have hot meals and received ham and cheese sandwiches , sometimes with an apple or some cookies , for three meals a day .
A boiled egg in the morning , maybe a packaged burrito .
Julia said that for two months she ate nothing but sandwiches .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ham , only cheese and bread .
Sometimes they give us the bread with mold on it , ” a letter writer noted .
She also took issue with the guards ’ lack of precautions moving between different parts of the prison .
“ When they bring the food cart knowing Charlie 100 has people with Covid-19 why would they put the food cart in their tank and then bring it in 200 , 300 , 400 , 500 ?
” Two women I spoke with last week said that kitchen workers had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they now had one hot meal a day .
“ We ’ re still getting the boxes in the morning and for dinner , ” one of them said .
( CoreCivic said that hot meals had resumed on July 16 . )
People who complained or pushed back faced retribution , several of the letters allege .
Women were sent to solitary after refusing to take food they believed could have been contaminated because it came from an area under quarantine .
The letters echo the alarms raised by correctional staff at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officer who resigned in June following the death of his co-worker told the Arizona Republic that officers were told to ration masks and gloves , to wear garbage bags with holes cut in them as protective gear , and to keep working when they showed symptoms .
The officer said that staff “ who showed signs of fever were told to sit in a tent next to a swamp cooler until their temperature came down.
” Many of the details of the guards ’ allegations line up with the detainees : short-staffing , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There was little transparency , the guards said , when a staff member or detained person tested positive , putting those who had been in contact with them at risk .
“ There was no information given in any of the briefings that we had about any of the pods that had positive cases in them , ” Nicholas Berg , a guard who quit in early June , told the Republic .
The guards also said the same things as the detainees about slow medical attention due to staff shortages , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ drink water .
CoreCivic denied almost every detail of both the guards ’ and detainees ’ accounts , saying that there were adequate cleaning supplies , masks , and gloves , and that guards were required to remove their protective gear when leaving units housing people who had tested positive .
The company disputed the women ’ s description of lockdowns , saying that they had not been confined to their cells or had their movement and privileges restricted for long periods of time .
Speaking to Congress on July 13 , CoreCivic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eloy as reflective of “ a little bit of an uptick ” in overall cases in Arizona .
He also denied that pepper-spray had been used at CoreCivic facilities , despite several well-documented incidents .
He then had to walk back the claim .
“ Have we been perfect ?
Absolutely not , ” Hininger said , but added , “ I feel good that we ’ ve made the appropriate investments along the way.
” Multiple letters insisted that ICE and CoreCivic were not telling the truth about conditions at the center @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that everything that ’ s been happening is under control , but it ’ s a lie , because every day there are more people infected , ” one woman wrote .
“ They take pictures when they hand out shampoo but things aren ’ t really like that.
” Private prison operators and their federal clients tend to play a game of passing the buck , with people inside as with the media .
A woman held at Eloy wrote that when she tried to complain to a visiting ICE officer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ luck , because we ICE officers are in charge only of your cases , and CoreCivic is in charge of your safety.
” At least 15 people have died while in custody at Eloy since 2003 , including five suicides .
“ The food , the lack of medical care has always been a problem at Eloy , ” said Kee , who organizes a fund to provide bond , supply commissary accounts , and buy phone cards for people detained there .
“ Care has always been horrible , and now it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the agency ’ s latest figures , 3,780 people have tested positive for Covid-19 while in ICE custody , and three people have died .
Advocates say ICE ’ s tally of positive tests likely undercounts the virus ’ s spread , given the lack of large-scale testing and frequent detainee transfers .
There are 22,142 people in ICE custody in facilities around the country .
That ’ s a drastic drop from prepandemic levels , which ICE attributes to a combination of factors , including fewer people taken into custody along the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic to justify pushing almost everyone , including children , immediately back into Mexico .
As The Intercept has reported , continuing deportations have certainly helped spread the coronavirus to the Caribbean and Latin America .
ICE claims that it takes medical vulnerabilities into account when determining whether to detain someone and that it has released hundreds of people who are at heightened risk .
But in many cases , it ’ s taken lawsuits to force the agency ’ s hand .
For the people inside , ICE can ’ t move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ does humanitarian work at Eloy and La Palma , said that a Venezuelan woman she is helping was granted withholding of removal — a status that keeps her from being returned to a country where she fears persecution — three months ago .
But ICE had appealed the judge ’ s decision and so she simply has to wait in jail .
“ The people who have bond , give them their bond , ” said Julia , the Cuban woman .
“ Get them out .
The sick people , give them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bond hearing on June 11 .
And my partner , thank God , was already out .
He got out before I did , and he paid my bond .
He had to call and call because 13 days went by , and they didn ’ t put me in the system because everyone was in quarantine , ” she told me .
“ The problem is that they don ’ t want to release people .
They always try to keep them in , ” her partner added .
Julia said she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some of the women she knew at Eloy .
“ It ’ s still bad , ” she said .
“ Just yesterday I heard about a woman who was with us , and she had her court date in July .
For asylum .
She had her court date in July and they moved it to August , and yesterday I learned that she has coronavirus.
” Julia and her partner are free now , staying with friends in Arizona , and they wish the same for all the other immigrants they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ give them a chance , ” Julia ’ s partner said .
“ Inside , when one person gets infected , they ’ re going to all get infected , because everyone is hermetically sealed in there.
” “ Breathing the same air .
Everyone , ” Julia finished his sentence .

The letters are desperate.
“Please, help us obtain our freedom. … It’s so dangerous these days, we find ourselves between life and death. We don’t want to be the victims of this ruthless virus, and here, in these conditions, really it’s just a matter of time.”
“I’m going to ask to be deported. Because being locked in this place there’s no peace, not psychologically or emotionally.”
“The fact that we are migrants doesn’t give them the right to treat us like criminals. … I’ve been detained for five months in this center with my lung condition and problems with my liver. Do you think that proper nutrition for a sick person is bread and ham every day?”
“I’ve seen things and lived things that no other person should have to live through. They put me into quarantine to see if I was carrying Covid-19 and from there, they only took us out for 20 minutes to bathe and make a phone call … 14 days of quarantine.”
In June, women held at Eloy Detention Center, a private immigration prison in Arizona owned and operated by CoreCivic, began to write down what they were going through. The letter writers did so despite the threat of retaliation, because, they said, people had to know what was happening. “You can’t speak freely here,” one woman wrote.
The letters have gone out to clergy, lawyers, volunteers, and family members. At neighboring La Palma Correctional Center, advocates collected mass letters describing horrible conditions, fear of contagion, and reprisal by guards. Bob Kee has visited detainees at Eloy for years and gives out his number and address to many of the people he meets. When bimonthly community volunteer visits to the prison were suspended in early March, he got occasional phone calls from friends inside. Their accounts of the conditions alarmed him. He asked one woman he knew, “Will you write me a letter, and she said, ‘I will,’ then two weeks later I got this big manila envelope with 40-odd letters.” Kee and other advocates shared many such letters with me, on the condition that the women’s names not be used.
The mostly handwritten notes represent an archive of an ongoing crisis in immigration detention facilities in Arizona, where hundreds of immigrants and correctional staff have been infected with Covid-19. According to CoreCivic, 159 employees, or 50 percent of the total workforce at Eloy, have tested positive to date. One correctional officer has died of the disease.
Thirty-four detainees at Eloy are currently being monitored after testing positive, according to ICE statistics; in total, 252 people held at the facility have contracted the disease. That puts Eloy among the ICE facilities with the highest number of infections. La Palma, which is also operated by CoreCivic, has had 105 reported cases. The actual number may be higher: The Arizona Republic obtained internal emails saying that as of June 22, 270 detainees at Eloy had tested positive. CoreCivic said the figure was a typo.
“I’m going to ask to be deported. Because being locked in this place there’s no peace, not psychologically or emotionally.”
The letters were mostly written in mid-June and describe a spiraling panic beginning in late May. Many of the complaints were also outlined in a lawsuit lodged in early June arguing for the release of medically at-risk detainees at Eloy and La Palma: lack of medical attention and cleaning supplies, and guards reusing protective equipment and punishing people who speak out. The problems were compounded because so many guards were infected. The facility was so short-staffed that women — even those who were not being monitored for coronavirus symptoms — spent hours locked in their cells, denied hot food and any kind of freedom of movement.
When the guards locked them in, a woman who was recently released told me, they’d say, “You have to protect yourselves.” But, she said, “we don’t go anywhere, we’re locked in a cell. You’re the ones that are in the street, you’re the ones that have to be careful with people coming into the center. Obviously you’re the ones bringing in the virus, not us.”
A spokesperson for CoreCivic, Amanda Gilchrist, responded to a detailed list of the women’s claims, saying: “These are baseless allegations, and the claims simply do not reflect the affirmative, proactive measures to combat the spread of COVID-19 our facility has been taking for months. We care deeply for our hard-working, dedicated employees, as well as individuals in our care, and we’re committed to their safety.” ICE declined to comment.
Conversations with several currently detained women and with volunteers and advocates who are in touch with people still at Eloy confirmed that while the lockdowns have eased and conditions have improved a bit, at least for people who aren’t quarantined, people remain fearful and desperate for release.
“It’s still scary because what if someone is still sick?” one woman told me by phone this week. “We’re getting mixed together. The other day, everyone in the unit was in the yard together.”
A Cuban asylum-seeker in Eloy was put in a section of the prison with people who had tested positive earlier this month, after she went to the doctor with trouble breathing. She insisted that it was her asthma, and she responded to asthma medication, but her cellmate had tested positive, so she was forced to wait for her results with people who had been infected. ICE has refused to grant her parole on humanitarian grounds, despite several attacks in the last month.
“My health is not the best,” she wrote in a letter to a local advocate in Arizona a few weeks ago. “My fear is I’ll keep having these attacks. I just ask God to give me health.”
The Eloy Detention Center, a private prison owned by CoreCivic, houses detainees waiting the outcome of their deportation proceedings, July 9, 2019. Photo: Norma Jean Gargasz/Alamy
“All the Workers Were Sick”
The spread of the coronavirus at Eloy seemed inevitable to the women held there.
“We can’t maintain social distancing because we have 50 women in each pod,” one woman wrote. “We touch the same things, the showers, microwave, chairs, tables, telephone.”
Keeping things sanitary was difficult. “We had to clean the cells with shampoo as chemicals were not provided to us,” one letter said. Several others added that the cleaning products they were given were diluted and ineffective. Correctional officers went from pod to pod, between the areas where people who had tested positive were being held in quarantine and the rest of the prison, without changing their protective gear. At mealtime, the food cart went between quarantined and nonquarantined areas. Multiple guards would reuse the same gloves and other gear, giving it a spray with disinfectant between rounds, the letters allege.
Medical attention, the women said, was terrible; there was none unless it was for Covid-19 symptoms, and in those cases, people were afraid that if they were thought to be infected, they’d be put into solitary. “When you get sick there, the only thing they tell you is ‘drink water,’ and ‘drink water,’ and ‘drink water,’ or maybe ‘take an ibuprofen and a lot of water,’” one woman told me.
“From what I’ve heard secondhand, you get no care when you get [Covid-19] in there,” said Kate MacNeil, a retired nurse who is a community advocate for people detained in Arizona. “It’s like being in solitary.” Multiple volunteers said they’d heard from people at Eloy and La Palma that even if they had symptoms, they would stay quiet about it because of how they’d be treated. A man held at Eloy told Mother Jones recently that while he was sick with the virus, he was held in isolation, had his temperature checked only sporadically, and was given only Tylenol and cough syrup after a week in isolation.
“Due to lack of staff to watch us the lockdowns are more frequent and longer. Many of us suffer from anxiety and claustrophobia.”
Setting aside the fear of contagion, women at Eloy suffered because of constant lockdowns and other deprivations because there were not enough staff. After the first positive cases were reported in late May, “everything seemed paralyzed during that time, no kitchen workers, no laundry workers, no maintenance, etc,” a Mexican woman wrote. The women were often locked in their cells for hours on end, with no access to the yard, commissary, library, telephones, or showers. “Saturday we were locked down 23 1/2 hours because there were only 2 officers for the whole unit, day and afternoon,” the Mexican woman reported.
“Due to lack of staff to watch us the lockdowns are more frequent and longer,” wrote another woman. “Many of us suffer from anxiety and claustrophobia.”
“They would tell us it was so we didn’t get infected, that it was better if we were in our cells,” said a Cuban woman, whom I will call Julia, who was released at the end of June. She asked not to be identified for fear of jeopardizing her asylum case. “But the truth was that they didn’t have workers. All the workers were sick.”
The women were told that they couldn’t have hot meals and received ham and cheese sandwiches, sometimes with an apple or some cookies, for three meals a day. A boiled egg in the morning, maybe a packaged burrito. Julia said that for two months she ate nothing but sandwiches.
“Sometimes they don’t even have ham, only cheese and bread. Sometimes they give us the bread with mold on it,” a letter writer noted. She also took issue with the guards’ lack of precautions moving between different parts of the prison. “When they bring the food cart knowing Charlie 100 has people with Covid-19 why would they put the food cart in their tank and then bring it in 200, 300, 400, 500?”
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
Two women I spoke with last week said that kitchen workers had just started up again, and that they now had one hot meal a day. “We’re still getting the boxes in the morning and for dinner,” one of them said. (CoreCivic said that hot meals had resumed on July 16.)
People who complained or pushed back faced retribution, several of the letters allege. Women were sent to solitary after refusing to take food they believed could have been contaminated because it came from an area under quarantine.
The letters echo the alarms raised by correctional staff at Eloy in recent weeks. A correctional officer who resigned in June following the death of his co-worker told the Arizona Republic that officers were told to ration masks and gloves, to wear garbage bags with holes cut in them as protective gear, and to keep working when they showed symptoms. The officer said that staff “who showed signs of fever were told to sit in a tent next to a swamp cooler until their temperature came down.” Many of the details of the guards’ allegations line up with the detainees: short-staffing, reused gear, watered-down cleaning products. There was little transparency, the guards said, when a staff member or detained person tested positive, putting those who had been in contact with them at risk.
“There was no information given in any of the briefings that we had about any of the pods that had positive cases in them,” Nicholas Berg, a guard who quit in early June, told the Republic. The guards also said the same things as the detainees about slow medical attention due to staff shortages, and that they often just told people to drink water.
“They take pictures when they hand out shampoo but things aren’t really like that.”
CoreCivic denied almost every detail of both the guards’ and detainees’ accounts, saying that there were adequate cleaning supplies, masks, and gloves, and that guards were required to remove their protective gear when leaving units housing people who had tested positive. The company disputed the women’s description of lockdowns, saying that they had not been confined to their cells or had their movement and privileges restricted for long periods of time.
Speaking to Congress on July 13, CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger explained the outbreak at Eloy as reflective of “a little bit of an uptick” in overall cases in Arizona. He also denied that pepper-spray had been used at CoreCivic facilities, despite several well-documented incidents. He then had to walk back the claim.
“Have we been perfect? Absolutely not,” Hininger said, but added, “I feel good that we’ve made the appropriate investments along the way.”
Multiple letters insisted that ICE and CoreCivic were not telling the truth about conditions at the center. “The people from ICE say that everything that’s been happening is under control, but it’s a lie, because every day there are more people infected,” one woman wrote. “They take pictures when they hand out shampoo but things aren’t really like that.”
Private prison operators and their federal clients tend to play a game of passing the buck, with people inside as with the media. A woman held at Eloy wrote that when she tried to complain to a visiting ICE officer, the official said, “Well good luck, because we ICE officers are in charge only of your cases, and CoreCivic is in charge of your safety.”
At least 15 people have died while in custody at Eloy since 2003, including five suicides. “The food, the lack of medical care has always been a problem at Eloy,” said Kee, who organizes a fund to provide bond, supply commissary accounts, and buy phone cards for people detained there. “Care has always been horrible, and now it’s even worse.”
A boy wearing a mask waits inside a truck with a banner reading “free them all” after a caravan protest around Immigration and Customs Enforcement El Paso Processing Center to demand the release of ICE detainees due to safety concerns amidst the COVID-19 outbreak on April 16, 2020 in El Paso, TX. Photo: Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images
“They Don’t Want to Release People”
According to the agency’s latest figures, 3,780 people have tested positive for Covid-19 while in ICE custody, and three people have died. Advocates say ICE’s tally of positive tests likely undercounts the virus’s spread, given the lack of large-scale testing and frequent detainee transfers.
There are 22,142 people in ICE custody in facilities around the country. That’s a drastic drop from prepandemic levels, which ICE attributes to a combination of factors, including fewer people taken into custody along the border. The U.S. has invoked the pandemic to justify pushing almost everyone, including children, immediately back into Mexico. As The Intercept has reported, continuing deportations have certainly helped spread the coronavirus to the Caribbean and Latin America.
ICE claims that it takes medical vulnerabilities into account when determining whether to detain someone and that it has released hundreds of people who are at heightened risk. But in many cases, it’s taken lawsuits to force the agency’s hand.
Do you have a coronavirus story you want to share? Email us at coronavirus@theintercept.com or use one of these secure methods to contact a reporter.
For the people inside, ICE can’t move fast enough. Cecilia Valenzuela, who does humanitarian work at Eloy and La Palma, said that a Venezuelan woman she is helping was granted withholding of removal — a status that keeps her from being returned to a country where she fears persecution — three months ago. But ICE had appealed the judge’s decision and so she simply has to wait in jail.
“The people who have bond, give them their bond,” said Julia, the Cuban woman. “Get them out. The sick people, give them humanitarian parole.”
“I had my bond hearing on June 11. And my partner, thank God, was already out. He got out before I did, and he paid my bond. He had to call and call because 13 days went by, and they didn’t put me in the system because everyone was in quarantine,” she told me.
“The problem is that they don’t want to release people. They always try to keep them in,” her partner added.
Julia said she was in touch with family members of some of the women she knew at Eloy. “It’s still bad,” she said. “Just yesterday I heard about a woman who was with us, and she had her court date in July. For asylum. She had her court date in July and they moved it to August, and yesterday I learned that she has coronavirus.”
Julia and her partner are free now, staying with friends in Arizona, and they wish the same for all the other immigrants they were held with. “They should give them a chance,” Julia’s partner said. “Inside, when one person gets infected, they’re going to all get infected, because everyone is hermetically sealed in there.”
“Breathing the same air. Everyone,” Julia finished his sentence.


theintercept--2020-07-27--Was the Chinese Consulate in Houston Really a Hotbed of Economic Espionage?

for the closing of the Chinese consulate in Houston approached on Friday afternoon , employees hauled out bags of supplies and heaved them into a van .
Then , shortly after 4 p.m. , a locksmith forced his way inside using power tools and a crowbar , and the U.S. State Department took over .
The transition was complete , as least as far as the U.S. government was concerned .
But the reason given for closing the consulate — that it was the epicenter of economic espionage and research theft in the United States — baffled many in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of past investigations into research transgressions .
“ We announced the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston because it was a hub of spying and intellectual property theft , ” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in a speech last week .
In a call with reporters on Friday , an unnamed senior State Department official alluded to the Houston consulate being involved with efforts to steal coronavirus vaccine research , but the department has provided no evidence to support that claim .
“ I think that this is more smoke than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an immigration attorney who has helped coordinate dialogue between the local Asian American community and the Houston field office of the FBI , which oversees domestic economic espionage investigations .
“ For the government to throw around accusations is not unusual .
But when it comes to proof , they oftentimes come up lacking .
There ’ s a lot of skepticism as to whether this consulate was really the hotbed of spy activity in the country.
” Embassies and consulates the world over commonly facilitate spying for political purposes , and as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ agencies , China is particularly active in this space .
A recent Department of Homeland Security document describing Chinese influence in the United States repeatedly mentions Chinese diplomats .
( The dispatch appears in the BlueLeaks trove of hacked documents . )
But the U.S. government distinguishes such routine spying from economic espionage , or spying for the express commercial gain of a foreign country ’ s corporations , which is a federal crime in the United States .
And among the hundreds of economic espionage-related cases brought across the country in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been a few tied to Texas .
The most notable inquiry into aberrant behavior by researchers in the region was a controversial 17-month FBI investigation involving scientists at Houston ’ s MD Anderson Cancer Center that yielded no criminal charges .
While it ’ s possible that the consulate was involved in activities that haven ’ t yet been publicized , the Trump administration has provided little evidence beyond the broad statements made by Pompeo and others .
( The State Department sent The Intercept a boilerplate statement but declined to answer questions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ . )
Lindsay Gorman , a fellow at the German Marshall Fund ’ s Alliance for Securing Democracy , said that the scant information given raises the possibility that this is “ just another escalation of the anti-China strategy that we have seen the White House really double down on over the last couple weeks and months.
” She added that “ China ’ s espionage and China ’ s authoritarian rise ” are a significant concern but that countering them requires a focused strategy grounded in U.S. interests .
The New York @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that purportedly outlined several FBI investigations connected to the Houston consulate .
One concern it highlighted was “ talent recruitment plans to persuade more than 50 researchers , professors and academics in the area to turn over tightly held research or information to Chinese institutions , ” the Times reported .
That is likely a reference to the Thousand Talents Plan , a recruitment scheme created by the Chinese Communist Party to attract prominent researchers , particularly ethnic Chinese , to work in China .
But while the program has been linked to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ intellectual property theft , most violations have concerned grant fraud or unreported research affiliations — hardly an imminent threat to U.S. national security that would require closing a consulate .
Grant fraud and the Thousand Talents Plan figured prominently in the MD Anderson investigation , which began in 2017 .
The case was spearheaded by the FBI ’ s Houston field office and the U.S. National Institutes of Health , which administers federal grant money for biomedical research and has asked institutions around the country to investigate scientists for violating its policies .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Anderson gave the FBI access to the network accounts of 23 employees .
As the inquiry progressed , several ethnic Chinese employees were put on leave .
One researcher with ties to China was placed under video surveillance and charged in state court with possession of child pornography , only to see the charges dropped when a grand jury declined to indict him .
Under leadership that included chief medical executive Stephen Hahn , MD Anderson assisted the FBI and NIH in compiling detailed files on its employees .
In the end , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or unexpectedly retired , but no one was charged with a crime relating to economic espionage or intellectual property theft .
The affected researchers included endowed professors , a senior administrator , and a former department chair .
One prominent researcher who was investigated , Xifeng Wu , returned to China , where she became active in coronavirus research .
When Todd Ackerman and I broke the news of the investigation in the Houston Chronicle and Science in 2019 , faculty at the research center were apoplectic , confronting Hahn in a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ordeal .
Later that year , President Donald Trump appointed him commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration .
Although the investigation has sometimes been held up nationally as an example of the threat to U.S. technology posed by China , in some quarters of Houston it is remembered as a witch hunt tainted by ethnic bias , which dealt with cancer research , not sensitive technology .
The investigation prompted the Asian American community to mobilize .
Earlier this spring , after a man stabbed an Asian American family at a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Texas , community groups took out ads in the Houston Chronicle decrying hate crimes .
Critics now worry that the MD Anderson saga is being exploited for political gain .
“ It started with a few scientists , with those few isolated incidents , and gradually heated up to the consulate being closed , ” said Helen Shih , a Houston-area medical practitioner and community organizer .
“ If you connect the dots , then you can see where it ’ s headed .
The U.S. government has been playing this China card @ @ @ @ @ @ @ People are concerned that this could be just the beginning of a continued escalation in the next 100 days , before the election , ” said Steven Pei , an engineering professor at the University of Houston .
Another possible driver for the consulate ’ s closure could be a case highlighted in a dispatch sent out by the FBI ’ s Office of Private Sector in February .
The document , which was released in the BlueLeaks hack , discusses the role played by Shan Shi , a former researcher at Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conspiracy to steal information on how to make syntactic foam , a technology that it says China ’ s government has identified as critical for its emergence as a maritime power .
The document mentions the Thousand Talents Plan but does not mention the consulate .
Shi was sentenced to 16 months in prison in February .
China has pursued a number of aggressive or disturbing actions over the past few months , including disclosing incomplete information about the coronavirus ’ s spread , imposing a problematic national security law in Hong Kong @ @ @ @ @ @ @ personal protective equipment .
But some worry that the closure sends U.S.-China relations into unpredictable territory at a time when the United States is already struggling with a pandemic .
On Friday , China ordered the closure of the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in retaliation .
“ The Trump administration ’ s credibility in the information and messaging arena is so degraded that we ’ re at a point where it ’ s unclear who to trust , ” said Gorman , adding that a lack of coherent strategy gives China the opportunity @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a U.S. government that we can trust to take action with solid grounding .
”

As the deadline for the closing of the Chinese consulate in Houston approached on Friday afternoon, employees hauled out bags of supplies and heaved them into a van. Then, shortly after 4 p.m., a locksmith forced his way inside using power tools and a crowbar, and the U.S. State Department took over. The transition was complete, as least as far as the U.S. government was concerned. But the reason given for closing the consulate — that it was the epicenter of economic espionage and research theft in the United States — baffled many in the city, including people with direct knowledge of past investigations into research transgressions.
“We announced the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston because it was a hub of spying and intellectual property theft,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared in a speech last week. In a call with reporters on Friday, an unnamed senior State Department official alluded to the Houston consulate being involved with efforts to steal coronavirus vaccine research, but the department has provided no evidence to support that claim.
“I think that this is more smoke than fire,” said Gordon Quan, an immigration attorney who has helped coordinate dialogue between the local Asian American community and the Houston field office of the FBI, which oversees domestic economic espionage investigations. “For the government to throw around accusations is not unusual. But when it comes to proof, they oftentimes come up lacking. There’s a lot of skepticism as to whether this consulate was really the hotbed of spy activity in the country.”
“I think that this is more smoke than fire.”
Embassies and consulates the world over commonly facilitate spying for political purposes, and as a major rising power with sophisticated intelligence agencies, China is particularly active in this space. A recent Department of Homeland Security document describing Chinese influence in the United States repeatedly mentions Chinese diplomats. (The dispatch appears in the BlueLeaks trove of hacked documents.) But the U.S. government distinguishes such routine spying from economic espionage, or spying for the express commercial gain of a foreign country’s corporations, which is a federal crime in the United States. And among the hundreds of economic espionage-related cases brought across the country in the past few years, there have only been a few tied to Texas. The most notable inquiry into aberrant behavior by researchers in the region was a controversial 17-month FBI investigation involving scientists at Houston’s MD Anderson Cancer Center that yielded no criminal charges.
While it’s possible that the consulate was involved in activities that haven’t yet been publicized, the Trump administration has provided little evidence beyond the broad statements made by Pompeo and others. (The State Department sent The Intercept a boilerplate statement but declined to answer questions or make officials available for an interview.) Lindsay Gorman, a fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Alliance for Securing Democracy, said that the scant information given raises the possibility that this is “just another escalation of the anti-China strategy that we have seen the White House really double down on over the last couple weeks and months.” She added that “China’s espionage and China’s authoritarian rise” are a significant concern but that countering them requires a focused strategy grounded in U.S. interests.
The New York Times obtained a seven-page document last week that purportedly outlined several FBI investigations connected to the Houston consulate. One concern it highlighted was “talent recruitment plans to persuade more than 50 researchers, professors and academics in the area to turn over tightly held research or information to Chinese institutions,” the Times reported. That is likely a reference to the Thousand Talents Plan, a recruitment scheme created by the Chinese Communist Party to attract prominent researchers, particularly ethnic Chinese, to work in China. But while the program has been linked to a few instances of technology transfer or intellectual property theft, most violations have concerned grant fraud or unreported research affiliations — hardly an imminent threat to U.S. national security that would require closing a consulate.
Grant fraud and the Thousand Talents Plan figured prominently in the MD Anderson investigation, which began in 2017. The case was spearheaded by the FBI’s Houston field office and the U.S. National Institutes of Health, which administers federal grant money for biomedical research and has asked institutions around the country to investigate scientists for violating its policies. As part of the investigation, MD Anderson gave the FBI access to the network accounts of 23 employees. As the inquiry progressed, several ethnic Chinese employees were put on leave. One researcher with ties to China was placed under video surveillance and charged in state court with possession of child pornography, only to see the charges dropped when a grand jury declined to indict him.
Under leadership that included chief medical executive Stephen Hahn, MD Anderson assisted the FBI and NIH in compiling detailed files on its employees. In the end, some researchers lost their jobs, resigned, or unexpectedly retired, but no one was charged with a crime relating to economic espionage or intellectual property theft. The affected researchers included endowed professors, a senior administrator, and a former department chair. One prominent researcher who was investigated, Xifeng Wu, returned to China, where she became active in coronavirus research.
When Todd Ackerman and I broke the news of the investigation in the Houston Chronicle and Science in 2019, faculty at the research center were apoplectic, confronting Hahn in a tense meeting. But Hahn weathered the ordeal. Later that year, President Donald Trump appointed him commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Although the investigation has sometimes been held up nationally as an example of the threat to U.S. technology posed by China, in some quarters of Houston it is remembered as a witch hunt tainted by ethnic bias, which dealt with cancer research, not sensitive technology. The investigation prompted the Asian American community to mobilize. Earlier this spring, after a man stabbed an Asian American family at a Sam’s Club in Midland, Texas, community groups took out ads in the Houston Chronicle decrying hate crimes.
“The U.S. government has been playing this China card since Trump came into office.”
Critics now worry that the MD Anderson saga is being exploited for political gain. “It started with a few scientists, with those few isolated incidents, and gradually heated up to the consulate being closed,” said Helen Shih, a Houston-area medical practitioner and community organizer. “If you connect the dots, then you can see where it’s headed. The U.S. government has been playing this China card since Trump came into office.”
“People are concerned that this could be just the beginning of a continued escalation in the next 100 days, before the election,” said Steven Pei, an engineering professor at the University of Houston.
Another possible driver for the consulate’s closure could be a case highlighted in a dispatch sent out by the FBI’s Office of Private Sector in February. The document, which was released in the BlueLeaks hack, discusses the role played by Shan Shi, a former researcher at Texas A&M University, in a conspiracy to steal information on how to make syntactic foam, a technology that it says China’s government has identified as critical for its emergence as a maritime power. The document mentions the Thousand Talents Plan but does not mention the consulate. Shi was sentenced to 16 months in prison in February.
China has pursued a number of aggressive or disturbing actions over the past few months, including disclosing incomplete information about the coronavirus’s spread, imposing a problematic national security law in Hong Kong, and using Uyghur labor to produce personal protective equipment. But some worry that the closure sends U.S.-China relations into unpredictable territory at a time when the United States is already struggling with a pandemic. On Friday, China ordered the closure of the U.S. consulate in Chengdu in retaliation.
“The Trump administration’s credibility in the information and messaging arena is so degraded that we’re at a point where it’s unclear who to trust,” said Gorman, adding that a lack of coherent strategy gives China the opportunity shape the narrative. “We need a U.S. government that we can trust to take action with solid grounding.”