Who will be helping Trump to grab the U.S. by the pussy?

Candidates for U.S. Attorney General & Director of Homeland Security

(See also Who else will be helping U.S. President-elect Trump to grab the U.S. by the pussy?)

         WASHINGTON D.C.––Leading candidates for appointment to U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet identified by The New York Times and the the political media Salon and Politico include a multitude of arch-enemies of animal advocacy,  a few fickle sometime fellow travelers on animal issues,  and several candidates with fairly consistent records of action on behalf of animals.

U.S. Presidential administrations often test potential public,  political,  and media response to appointments by confidentially leaking names to strategically placed media before making their choices public and official.

Some pro-animal history

         ANIMALS 24-7 has since the November 8,  2016 election spent days reviewing the backgrounds on animal issues of each of the likely cabinet appointees identified by The New York Times,  Salon and Politico.

Many of the leaked names,  especially the apparent candidates for Secretary of Interior and Secretary of Agriculture,  have discouraging records on animal issues.

(See Part II,  to follow.)

But all four reported leading contenders to become Attorney General–– New Jersey governor Chris Christie,  former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani,  U.S. Senator from Alabama Jeff Sessions,  and Florida attorney general Pam Bondi –– have some pro-animal history on their resumes.

What the U.S. Attorney General means to animals

The position of U.S. Attorney General is of particular importance to animals and animal advocates because it is the U.S. Attorney General’s office that oversees federal criminal prosecutions,  enforcing––for example––the federal laws against transporting fighting dogs,  gamecocks,  and animal fighting paraphernalia across state lines.

Historically the U.S. Attorney General’s office was relatively seldom involved in animal issues,  but this has changed markedly over the past several decades.

A multitude of offenses against animals have now been criminalized,  which a generation ago were punishable at the federal level––if at all––only as violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.  As Animal Welfare Act violations,  the recently criminalized offenses were subject only to civil penalties.

Introducing criminal penalties has moved much of the responsibility for enforcing the federal laws against animal abuses and misuses from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the Attorney General’s office.

Chris Christi

Trump on November 11,  2016 named Gingrich,  Giuliani,  Sessions,  Bondi,  Trump’s trophy-hunting sons Donald Jr.  and Eric,  and his fur-selling daughter Ivanka to his Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee,  but removed Chris Christie,  who had headed the committee,  in favor of the vice president elect,  Indiana governor Mike Pence.

         Christie reportedly remains a possible nominee for U.S. Attorney General,  but has alienated some of Trump’s ultra-conservative allies with his positions on a variety of issues,  including some of his positions on trophy hunting.

Why trophy hunters would like to bag him

Governor Christie was in July 2016 named in a lawsuit brought by the pro-hunting organization Conservation Force and a group of hunters as individuals,  who hope to overturn a New Jersey law signed by Christie just a month earlier that prohibits either importing into the state or exporting out of the state trophies from threatened or endangered animals,  even if legally hunted.

“Lawmakers approved the measure in response to the killing last year of Cecil,  a Zimbabwean lion,  by a Minnesota dentist,”  recalled Josh Cornfield of Associated Press.

The 2016 law expands upon a law Christie signed in 2014,  also decried by trophy hunters,  that forbids imports or exports of elephant ivory and rhino horn from New Jersey.

Tossed bones

Christie had curried favor with hunters in 2010 by authorizing the resumption of bear hunting,  which had been halted by his gubernatorial predecessor,  Jon Corazine.  But also in 2010 Christie tossed a couple of bones to animal advocates and environmentalists by signing legislation to ban recreationally hunting diamondback terrapins,  a turtle species struggling to recover from intensive market hunting for more than a century,  and by opposing oil drilling off the New Jersey coast.

In 2011 and 2012,  Christie first vetoed an attempt by the New Jersey Racing Commission to allocate $15 million in state subsidies to bolster horse racing purses,  and then signed into law a bill that prohibits the sale of horse meat,  slaughter of horses for human consumption,  and sale and transport of horses for human consumption.

Dogs & cats

Also in 2011 Christie signed legislation that mandates minimum five-year prison terms – with no chance of parole – and allows fines of up to $15,000 for people who kill police dogs or search-and-rescue dogs.

Adding to a largely positive record on dog,  cat,  and horse issues,  the traditional foci of humane work,  Christie in 2015 endorsed legislation that makes dogfighting a felony in New Jersey,  adds it to a list of offenses recognized as associated with organized crime,  and prohibits not only dogfighting itself but also keeping or using premises for dogfighting,  owning or training fighting dogs;  permitting dogfighting on premises one owns;  and witnessing,  encouraging,  or wagering on a dogfight.

Dogfighting in New Jersey previously was prosecuted as cruelty to animals.

Pet store legislation

Also in 2015,  Christie signed legislation requiring pet stores selling cats and dogs to post information about the breeders and brokers who supply their animals on the animals’ enclosures.  This information is to include the breeders and brokers’ names and addresses.  Pet stores are in addition required to make available to customers the last two years’ worth of their animal suppliers’ USDA Animals & Plant Health Inspection Service reports.

Further,  the law excludes pet stores from selling cats and dogs from breeders who are not in compliance with New Jersey animal care legislation and/or the federal Animal Welfare Act.

Christie vs. SHAC 7

“Before his stint as governor of New Jersey,”  the Coalition to Ban Horse-Drawn Carriages remembered,  Christie “was the chief prosecutor of the SHAC 7 case that landed several animal activists in jail.”

In that case,  six individuals associated with the organization Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty were in 2006 convicted of “animal enterprise terrorism and interstate stalking,”  while a sixth defendant was found guilty only of conspiracy.

ANIMALS 24-7 considers those convictions and the prison sentences that the convicted individuals subsequently received appropriate,  for the use of tactics more closely associated with far-right hate groups,  including the Ku Klux Klan,  than legitimate animal advocates.

What SHAC did

The SHAC web site offered personal information about employees of Huntingdon Life Sciences and companies that did business with Huntingdon, including not only names,  addresses,  and home telephone numbers,  but also in some cases the schools that their children attended,  the names of their teachers,  and their after-school activities.

Targeted individuals testified,  summarized Wayne Parry of Associated Press,  that “they were besieged by screaming protesters outside their homes at all hours,  deluged by threatening phone calls,  and were sent pornographic magazines they had not ordered.  One woman said she received an e-mail threatening to cut her 7-year-old son open and stuff him with poison.  A man said he was showered with glass as people smashed all the windows of his home and overturned his wife’s car.

The testimony was supported by videos of some of the home demonstrations.

Who the SHAC 7 were

Former Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA president Kevin Kjonaas,  also known as Kevin Jonas,  drew six years in prison;   former SHAC campaign coordinator Lauren Gazzola drew 52 months;  former SHAC web site manager Jacob Conroy, drew 48 months;  former SHAC west coast coordinator Joshua Harper and former SHAC New York coordinator Andrew Stepanian each drew 36 months;  and former SHAC researcher Darius Fullmer received a year and a day.  All were also ordered to help pay $1 million in restitution to the people and companies they were convicted of harassing.

Twice vetoed bills to help pigs

Of more substantial concern,  Christie in both 2013 and 2014 vetoed bills overwhelmingly approved by the New Jersey legislature which would have banned the use of gestation stalls to confine pregnant and nursing sows.

The vetoes appear to have been at the behest of Iowa governor Terry Branstad and hog producer Bruce Rastetter,  both mentioned as possible Trump nominees for Secretary of Agriculture,  whose support Christie courted for his own 2012 and 2016 runs at the Republican presidential nomination.

Branstad,  Rastetter,  and Christie in 2016 all ended up throwing their support to Trump.

Branstad,  who worked from 1973 to 2011 to overturn a 1918 Iowa law prohibiting dove hunting,  in 2012 won passage of the first “ag-gag” bill in the U.S.,  to protect agribusiness from activist and media scrutiny.

Rudy Giuliani

Rudy Giuliani,  who may have advanced ahead of Christie as Trump’s most likely choice to become Attorney General,  in 2000 “proposed and signed a bill to promote the spaying and neutering of dogs and cats and open an animal shelter in each borough in order to help curb New York’s pet overpopulation,”  recalled Humane Society Legislative Fund president Mike Markarian early in the 2016 presidential primary campaign,  when Giuliani himself was briefly among the contenders for the nomination eventually won by Trump.

Giuliani was “the first Republican candidate to release a public statement on animal issues,”  Markarian remembered.

The statement read,  in full,  “Animals play an important part in the lives of many Americans.  We should all work to reduce animal suffering by advocating for sensible public policies,  investigating animal cruelty and strongly enforcing the laws that are already on the books.  I will continue to support efforts to educate the public about animal issues,”  Giuliani pledged,  “and work with corporations to develop animal-friendly policies.”

Garo Alexanian

Companion Animal Network founder Garo Alexanian served as an informal advisor on animal control to Giuliani during his first term as New York City mayor.   “Though he is one of those ‘people first’ pols,  he has excellent judgment,”  Alexanian told ANIMALS 24-7.  “I was wondering why he was such a supporter of wildman Trump, but now that I see Trump talk as a future president, Rudy may have been right in supporting him.”

But Giuliani has clashed with some animal advocates.

“Little weasels”

“While mayor,”  recalled Lisa Anderson of the Chicago Tribune,  “Giuliani famously tongue-lashed ferret advocate David Guthartz on a 1999 radio show, calling him ‘deranged’ and telling him that ‘this excessive concern with little weasels is a sickness.’”  Giuliani in 2001 vetoed a New York City Council bill which would have rescinded the city health department’s 1999 inclusion of ferrets on a list of prohibited “wild,  ferocious,  fierce,  dangerous” animals.

“Got Prostate Cancer?”

A year later,  in 2002,  Giuliani reportedly considered suing PETA for posting “Got Prostate Cancer?” billboards attacking milk-drinking that included his photograph.

The billboard company averted a possible lawsuit by removing the ads within days,  while Giuliani disassociated himself from the message by spotlighting milk at several public appearances.

The Coalition to Ban Horse Drawn Carriages on November 13,  2016 recalled Giuliani as “particularly hateful to animal rights activists,  and when asked about the Center for Animal Care and Control,  said to the media in a dismissive way ‘Let’s talk about something more important – the Yankees.’  And he was serious.”

Jeff Sessions

U.S. Senator from Alabama and former Alabama attorney general Jeff Sessions,  a strong candidate for U.S. Attorney General,  has also been reported by Salon assistant editor Brent Gauthier to be among Trump’s top picks to become Secretary of Defense,  and by The New York Times to be a front-runner for Director of Homeland Security.

As Secretary of Defense,  Sessions could be expected to uphold the present bans by all branches of the armed services on pit bulls and other high-risk dog breeds from base housing.

As Director of Homeland Security,  Sessions would have a role in interdicting wildlife trafficking,  and could be expected to take it seriously.

Legislative record

Sessions in November 2012 invoked the August 2011 Budget Control Act to block passage of the Sportsmen’s Act,  a package of favors for hunters introduced by Senator Jon Tester (D-Montana).

In 2010 Sessions cosponsored the Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act,  successfully prosecuted for the first time in February 2016,  after having initially been found unconstitutional by U.S. District Judge Sim Lake,  who was reversed in 2014 by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pallid sturgeon

Sessions,  usually aligned with hunting and fishing interests,  in 2008 helped to kill former U.S. President George W. Bush’s proposal to create a string of marine sanctuaries in the Gulf of Mexico,  which were to be called the “Islands in the Stream,”

Sessions also opposed listing the Alabama pallid sturgeon as an endangered species,  arguing unsuccessfully in 2000 that the Alabama pallid sturgeon was the same species as the shovelnose sturgeon.  The last known Alabama pallid sturgeon was believed to have died in 2005,  but another was found in 2007,  and tracked until a transmitter failed in 2009.  Twice declared extinct,  the Alabama pallid sturgeon may persist somewhere,  as DNA from it was found in water samples taken in 2014 and 2015.

Closed scam shelter

As Alabama attorney general,  Sessions in 1995-1996 had a leading role in closing the former Love & Care for God’s Animalife no-kill shelter in Andalusia,  Alabama,  and an attempt by some of the principals involved in it to start a successor organization.  to their own newly formed organization,  Saving Animals From Euthanasia.

Love & Care for God’s Animalife founder Ann Fields relocated to Alabama from Georgia in 1989 after a decade of efforts to close the original premises by local authorities and the Georgia secretary of state.  Fields,  who allegedly visited the Alabama facilities only once,  while living in California and taking in more than $1 million a year in donations,  died from ingesting a horse tranquilizer in October 1995,  soon after being indicted for fraud.

North Shore Animal League

The North Shore Animal League,  of Port Washington,  New York,  and the Montgomery County Humane Society together evacuated 511 dogs and 243 cats from the premises.   The North Shore Animal League became involved after Sessions personally called ANIMALS 24-7 editor Merritt Clifton to ask for introductions to any national organizations that might be willing to help.

Of the evacuated animals,  484 dogs and 198 cats eventually found homes,  with the additional help of the Alabama Federation of Animal Control and Humane Societies,  the Chicago-based Society of St. Francis,  and the Humane Society of North Pinellas County,  of Clearwater,  Florida.

Pam Bondi

Considered a longshot for appointment as U.S. Attorney General,  but also known to be longtime Trump insider,  is former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.

As Florida attorney general,  Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle blogged in January 2015,  “Pam Bondi has made animal protection a serious priority.”

In July 2014,  Pacelle remembered,  Bondi “shut down a Jacksonville puppy mill and puppy importer,  who had been hawking sick English bulldog puppies to unsuspecting sellers over the Internet. She’s strongly supported decoupling greyhound racing and casino-style gambling,”  Pacelle said,  and “supported legislation to require greyhound tracks to report injuries.  On a personal level,  Bondi brings an adoptable shelter dog to every cabinet meeting to promote adoption.”

Shut down pit bull breeder

Elected attorney general in 2010,  Bondi was re-elected in 2014 with the endorsement of the HSUS political arm,  Humane Society Legislative Fund.

The Jacksonville puppy mill Pacelle mentioned was actually more in the pit bull breeding business than the English bulldog import business,  reportedly selling about 700 dogs in five years of operation.

“Brook Anthony Roque,  Anthony Rene Roque,  Glenda Chester Roque,  Kassaundra Ann Buttram,  and Michelle Lee Echols operated as Five Star Bulldogs,  Grand Bulldogs,  Matrix Bulldogs,  Brook’s Bullies and Remarkabull,”  reported Palm Beach Post staff writer Christine Stapleton.  “The breeders allegedly sold the puppies for $1,500 to $2,300 each,  totaling more than $1 million in potential profits.  Many of the puppies sold suffered from congenital defects,  parasites,  or other serious health or behavioral issues.”

Enforced gestation crate initiative

Bondi in 2013 represented the State of Florida in defense of a 2002 law passed by ballot initiative that banned raising sows in gestation crates that do not allow them to turn around.  Only two pig farms in Florida were affected by the law.  Both shut down.

“State legislators attempted to compensate the two farmers,”  summarized Gary Fineout of Associated Press,  “but then-governor Jeb Bush vetoed the funding.”

One farmer,  Stephen Basford,  “sued the state in 2010 for the cost of the barns and other equipment he had used for his farm,”  Fineout continued.  “He won at the circuit court level and the state,”  represented by Bondi personally,  “appealed.  The First District Court of Appeal ruled that the state owed Basford $505,000 plus interest.”

Name dropped in alleged neglect case

Earlier in 2013,  reported Eloísa Ruano González of the Orlando Sentinel,  Lake County animal-services director Marjorie Boyd and Lake County conservation and compliance department chief Gregg Welstead resigned jobs paying $77,000 and $125,000 a year,  respectively,  “amid an investigation into whether a prominent rancher,”  former Tampa attorney Rex Farrior III,  “mistreated his cattle and should be charged with animal cruelty and neglect.”

The case “also reached Lake County attorney Sandy Minkoff,”  González wrote.  “E-mails to Minkoff obtained by the Sentinel show that Farrior’s attorney denied that the cattle were malnourished,  dropped names of two people the rancher knows — state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam and Attorney General Pam Bondi — and pointed out that his client was a University of Florida ‘big wig,’” specifically president elect at the time of the U.F. Gator Boosters.

Tried to keep Katrina dog

As a Hillsborough County prosecutor,  Bondi in October 2005 lost her St. Bernard to cancer.  Nine days later Bondi adopted another St. Bernard from the Humane Society of Pinellas County.  Her new St. Bernard had come from St. Bernard Parish,  Louisiana soon after Hurricane Katrina,  and had been left at the St. Bernard Parish Animal Shelter for safekeeping after his people,  Steven and Doreen Couture,  were forced to evacuate by a broken levee.

Asked to return the St. Bernard,  “Bondi initially dug in her heels and hired a bulldog litigator,”  recounted DeMorris A. Lee and Colleen Jenkins of the St. Petersburg Times.  In May 2007,  however,  facing a jury trial,  Bondi returned the St. Bernard to the Coutures.

Sheriff Joe

Defeated in his attempt to win an unprecedented seventh term as Sheriff of Maricopa County,  Arizona,  Joe Arpaio at age 84 would likely be a ceremonial choice as director of the Department of Homeland Security,  if chosen instead of Sessions.  But Trump has often praised Arpaio for his aggressive approach to immigration law enforcement.

Arpaio would bring to Homeland Security a flamboyant history of animal-related law enforcement,  dating to 1999,  when he converted a former jail to house animals seized from suspects in cruelty cases and the pets of victims of domestic violence who sought shelters in facilities that did not accept pets.

Reality TV & the SWAT team

After that initiative won public approval,  Arpaio in January 2005 reassigned four deputies and four civilian investigators to handle animal abuse cases full-time,   authorized the county Animal Cruelty Prevention Unit to immediately arrest and jail suspects,  and disbanded the then full-time Maricopa County SWAT team,  telling critics that prosecuting animal abuse would do more for crime prevention.

Disbanding the full-time SWAT team had mixed consequences in 2011,  when a less professional replacement team raided alleged cockfighter Jesus Sanchez Llovera’s premises with actor Steven Seagal and a reality-TV camera crew along for the ride.

Llovera in January 2013 pleaded guilty to cockfighting charges,  while a federal lawsuit alleging that the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office had violated his civil rights was dismissed.

“Seagal’s reality-TV episode with the raid footage never aired,”  reported J.J. Hensley of the Arizona Republic.

Soy protein

Arpaio later in 2005 converted part of another jail into an overflow shelter for dogs and cats who might otherwise have been killed due to short space at the at overcrowded county animal shelters.

Arpaio won further favor with animal advocates in September 2013 by replacing beef in Maricopa County jails with soy protein.

And Arpaio burnished his credentials on both animal issues and illegal immigration in June 2015 when the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office arrested alleged puppy miller Colleen Jolley on animal abuse and neglect charges,  impounded 92 puppies,  and recommended here for deportation,  as a British citizen whose visa had expired.  Jolley had previously been convicted of similar charges in Oregon in 1994.

Mounted posse

As the 2016 election approached,  Arpaio orchestrated at least two more major mass neglect busts.  In May 2016 Arpaio played up the arrest of the tenth suspect in about 15 years to be arrested through undercover stings arranged to apprehend alleged zoophiles for soliciting sex with animals.

Two weeks before the November 8,  2016 election Arpaio sent a mounted posse of volunteers to investigate alleged horse shootings in the Salt River area.

M-I-C-K-E-Y

But Arpaio probably lost more voters than he won over with his handling of a pit bull mauling on February 20,  2014.  Summarized Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times,  “Arpaio came to the dog’s defense,  saving a pit bull named Mickey from getting put down after it mauled and disfigured a little Latino boy. The dog was white,  the boy was brown. Local racists loved it.”

Eventually Arpaio donated $2,500 and an assortment of toys to the 4-year-old victim,  Kevin Vicente,  but only after Vicente and his mother Flora were viciously maligned by online pit bull advocates,  who wrongly alleged that Kevin  had taken a bone from the chained pit bull and that his mother was not present.  Pit bull advocates donated many times more money to save the pit bull than was donated to help Kevin,  who still faces years of plastic surgery to try to restore him to normal appearance.  Arpaio meanwhile persuaded a judge to let him keep the pit bull,  named Mickey,  at one of the Maricopa County jail animal shelters after defanging and castration,  and set up a web camera to allow Mickey’s fans to monitor his care.

(See also Who else will be helping U.S. President-elect Trump to grab the U.S. by the pussy?)

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