,
13 tweets,
5 min read
Read on Twitter
The Senate has just opened hearings to consider whether Daniel Jorjani should become the Interior Department's new top lawyer. Jorjani is a former adviser to Charles Koch and a key ally of Secretary David Bernhardt: psmag.com/environment/fo…
As a top aide at the Interior Department since the early days of the Trump administration, Jorjani is the one who took a meat cleaver to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act: revealnews.org/article/trumps…
He also helped initiate the Trump administration's drive to open lands near the Boundary Water wilderness in Minnesota to new metal mining: washingtonpost.com/news/energy-en…
And he's leading the Interior Department's crackdown on #FOIA: theguardian.com/us-news/2018/d…
Watch the hearing here: energy.senate.gov/public/index.c…
At the hearing, @SenAngusKing asked Jorjani if he had ever met with anyone from Freedom Partners, his former employer, during his time in office. Jorjani said he couldn't recall. Here's an entry from Jorjani's official calendar showing a meeting with a Richard Ribbentrop: 
Here's a letter, dated August 2016, from Freedom Partner's Senior Vice President at the time, Richard Ribbentrop: freedompartners.org/press/freedom-…
In other words, Jorjani had a May 3, 2017 meeting with Richard Ribbentrop, who appears to be a long-time executive from Freedom Partners. Jorjani should have disclosed that meeting when @EnergyDems asked him about his communications with his former employer. Why didn't he?
Senator King asked Jorjani: "Since you have been in the Department of the Interior, have you had any oral or written contact with any of the personnel associated with Freedom Partners or the Koch brothers' various either business or political interests?"
Jorjani said: "If it is any oral communications with anyone who has ever worked at Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce ... to the best of my recollection I have never had a meeting nor any official communications with them," saying he would double check.
Well, a Richard Ribbentrop was the long-time VP at Freedom Partners, and appears to have left the organization sometime in late 2016 or early 2017. And Jorjani had a breakfast meeting with a Richard Ribbentrop on May 2, 2017 that was on his *official* government calendar:
