Look at his face. Emergildo Criollo, Chief of the Cofan people of the Amazon in Ecuador. Determined, dignified, in war paint, bare-chested... gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…#FreeDonziger 🧵
It was in 2007, when I found him in his thatched stilt home in the rainforest. Criollo told me his 3-year-old had jumped into a swimming hole, covered with an enticing shine. The shine was oil sludge, illegally dumped. His son came up vomiting blood and died in the Chief’s arms.
I followed Criollo to the courthouse in the dusty roustabout town of Lago Agrio (Bitter Lake) where, with a sheaf of papers, he sought justice for his son. gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…
Behind Criollo, the court clerks, in their white shirts and ties, were giggling and grinning at each other, nodding toward this “indio” painted up and half naked, thinking he can file a suit against a giant. A giant named Chevron.
In 2011, they stopped laughing. That’s when an Ecuadorian court ordered Chevron to pay Criollo and other indigenous co-plaintiffs $9.5 billion. The courts found that Chevron’s Texaco operation had illegally dumped 16 billion gallons of deadly oil waste. gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…
What the gigglers didn’t know is that the Chief had a secret weapon: @SDonziger, a US attorney, classmate of Barack Obama at Harvard law, who gave up everything — literally everything — to take on Criollo’s case. gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…
It’s been a decade, and Chevron still hasn’t paid a dime. But Donziger has paid big time. Chevron set out to destroy Donziger, to make an example of a human rights lawyer that dares take on the petroleum pirates. gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…#FreeDonziger
Chevron filed suits against @SDonziger and found a former tobacco industry lawyer judge to find him in contempt for refusing to turn over his cell phone and computer to Chevron — an unprecedented attack on attorney-client privilege. #FreeDonziger
When @SDonziger said he’d appeal, the judge charged him with criminal contempt — that’s simply unprecedented. But a far more dangerous precedent was set... gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…
When federal prosecutors in New York laughed off and rejected the judge’s demand that they charge Donziger, the judge appointed Chevron’s lawyers, Seward & Kissel, working with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, to act as the prosecutors! Say what? gregpalast.com/facing-prison-…
The first-ever criminal prosecution by a US corporation. This, by itself, is deeply, deeply, dangerous and I will not let them put @SDonziger behind bars without raising hell! #FreeDonziger
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🚨 Instead of counting Joe Biden’s brain cells, we need to be counting “vigilantes,” the self-proclaimed vote fraud hunters who, under new state laws, can challenge the vote of their fellow Americans and stop their votes from being counted.
In 2022, 88 self-appointed GOP vote fraud hunters challenged 180,000 voters’ registrations in Georgia. They successfully removed thousands of voters from the rolls in that state. gregpalast.com/the-real-issue…
The group behind the attack on US citizens, True the Vote, glorying in their success in Georgia, has rolled out the vote challenge operation to several swing states and––Are you ready for this numbers?––they signed up 44,000 volunteer vigilante vote challengers so far this year.
While most of the press is busy blathering about whether another Trump conviction will affect the vote, literally a million voters are losing their ballots with hardly a peep in the press.
One such voter, whom you’ll meet in our film Vigilantes Inc., MAJ. Gamaliel Turner, had to fly thousands of miles and bring in a Washington lawyer to have his 2022 ballot counted. gregpalast.com/warrior-on-two…
Mark Elias, the voting rights lawyer for Major Turner, is losing his mind over the failure of the press to see the #1 threat to democracy in 2024: hundreds of thousands of vigilante challenges taken from lists created from uber-Right-wing groups led by True the Vote.
Trump's plan for 2024 is taken from the KKK Plan of 1946.
If we don’t expose it, this old Klan scam will pick your next president...
#VigilantesInc #Election2024
In 1946, the Ku Klux Klan incorporated itself in Georgia as Vigilantes Inc. – specifically to eliminate every Black citizen from the rolls. It worked. Vigilantes Inc. elected their Klan strategist, Eugene Talmadge, as Governor. gregpalast.com/trump-plan-for…
And now, a new Vigilantes Inc. operation is back — for Trump. The exact same plan as the KKK 1940’s scheme — now powered by billionaires’ loot.
#Ukraine: It’s not aid, it’s our obligation under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum #UkraineNeedsAirDefense | #ArmUkraineNow
Under the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons in exchange for security guarantees from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Russia. So, we had an obligation to defend Ukraine if they were ever invaded. hartmannreport.com/p/the-failure-…
And when we say aid to Ukraine, understand almost all the money that we “give" to Ukraine is used to buy American weapons, and supplies, and goods. It doesn't go anywhere. It's just money for them to purchase stuff mostly from us. apnews.com/article/biden-…
In 1996, I filmed an investigation that never saw the light of day. It was about the richest guys you’d never heard of, Charles and David Koch — and their theft of a mind-blowing $2 billion in oil from Osage tribal land. Now, I’m blowing open the files in a new film... 🧵
It’s said that behind every great fortune is a great crime. This is the crime, the genesis of the Kochs’ $120 billion empire — and the foundation of the fearsome Koch Network, that political Death Star, created solely to keep Charles Koch out of prison. gregpalast.com/what-charles-k…
Killers of the Flower Moon tells the story of the murder of scores of Osage for their oil. It ends in the 1920s, but as Chief Standing Bear says, “It’s still going on”. He wants us to know the rest of the story, especially the Osage's battle with Koch Oil gregpalast.com/americas-osage…
This week, Scorsese releases his film Killers of the Flower Moon: the true story of the mass murder of the Osage and the theft of their oil wealth. But the story doesn’t end when the credits roll. For 27 years, I've been investigating what happened next... 🧵
Over the past century, the #Osage Nation has continued to suffer massive oil thievery, poisoning, and impoverishment on their Oklahoma reservation.
“It’s not over,” Osage principal chief, Geoffrey Standing Bear, tells me. “It’s still happening.” gregpalast.com/americas-osage…
At the heart of it is legal control of Osage native land by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs, an entity the Osage call the Ma-he-tah, or the Long Knife. Standing Bear, a lawyer himself, likens the arrangement to a military occupation.