{"id":631247,"date":"2021-08-10T21:35:28","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T01:35:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=631247"},"modified":"2021-08-10T21:35:30","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T01:35:30","slug":"exclusive-convicted-eco-saboteur-disputes-biden-land-management-nominees-characterization-of-their-relationship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/exclusive-convicted-eco-saboteur-disputes-biden-land-management-nominees-characterization-of-their-relationship\/","title":{"rendered":"EXCLUSIVE: Convicted Eco-Saboteur Disputes Biden Land Management Nominee\u2019s Characterization Of Their Relationship"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fexclusive-convicted-eco-saboteur-disputes-biden-land-management-nominees-characterization-of-their-relationship%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=631247&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/Tracy-stone-manning-e1623426249643.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>The ringleader of a 1989 eco-sabotage incident said he resents the way Bureau of Land Management nominee Tracy Stone-Manning describes their relationship.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Stone-Manning sent an anonymous and threatening letter to the Forest Service on behalf of John Blount in 1989 warning that the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho had been sabotaged with tree spikes and was unsafe to log.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>\u201cI knew who Tracy was. Didn\u2019t know her well. She liked the way I kissed,\u201d Blount told the Daily Caller News Foundation. \u201cI don\u2019t see the horrifying menacing part.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Blount said he shared meals at least three times with Stone-Manning and a man he described as her then-boyfriend, John Lilburn, at their single bedroom apartment before he committed his crime.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Stone-Manning later served as a spokeswoman for an Earth First tree-sitting action that John Lilburn described as a payback to the authorities for their investigation into the tree spiking incident.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The ringleader of a 1989 eco-terrorism incident said he resents how Bureau of Land Management nominee Tracy Stone Manning described him as a \u201crather disturbed\u201d and \u201cfrankly, frightening\u201d person who had asked her to send an anonymous, threatening letter notifying federal authorities of his crime.<\/p>\n<p>John Blount, who was sentenced in 1993 to 17 months in prison for organizing and carrying out the tree spiking sabotage of the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho, said he was on friendly terms with Stone-Manning before he planned the crime. Blount said Stone-Manning had agreed before any trees were spiked that she would send a letter to the Forest Service after the crime was committed warning that the site had been made unsafe to log.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI knew who Tracy was. Didn\u2019t know her well. She liked the way I kissed,\u201d Blount told the Daily Caller News Foundation. \u201cI don\u2019t see the horrifying menacing part.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Blount said he made out with Stone-Manning in the late 1980s at a party at the Sherwood House, a shared residence and \u201ccontact house\u201d for a number of Missoula-based Earth First activists. Blount said his brief tryst with Stone-Manning came before he started planning his tree spiking plot, and he stressed it was nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment type of thing that tends to happen at college parties.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCollege kids, sometimes,\u201d Blount said. \u201cYeah, it\u2019s fun to neck with somebody, whatever they call it these days.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI remember kissing. I remember a lot of other people being around,\u201d Blount recalled. \u201cI remember her telling several other people that I had gone to the party with: \u2018I like the way he kisses.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s kind of a funny thing,\u201d Blount added, saying it\u2019s incompatible with Stone-Manning\u2019s characterization that he was a disturbing and terrifying individual.<\/p>\n<p>Blount said Stone-Manning lived at the Sherwood House when the two made out. Later, he said, Stone-Manning moved into a single-bedroom apartment with John Lilburn, another member of the Missoula-based Earth First activist community known as Wild Rockies Earth First.<\/p>\n<p>Blount said he shared meals with Stone-Manning and John Lilburn at their apartment on three occasions before he began planning the tree spiking plot.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOnce they moved in together, these people were in a relationship,\u201d Blount said of Stone-Manning and John Lilburn. \u201cThey moved in together in their own home, one bedroom. You can pretty well assume that\u2019s a relationship of some sort.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John Lilburn told the DCNF in an email that Blount\u2019s claims about him living with and being in a relationship with Stone-Manning were not true. However, he did not answer when asked additional questions about his relationship with Stone-Manning.<\/p>\n<p>Stone-Manning <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/stone-manning-testimony.pdf\">testified<\/a> during Blount\u2019s criminal trial in 1993 that she stayed in the Sherwood House for a couple of weeks upon first arriving in Missoula in September 1988 before moving into an apartment in town. Stone-Manning was not asked during the trial if she lived with anyone in the apartment, however, she did describe John Lilburn as a good friend, court records show.<\/p>\n<p>Stone-Manning also described Blount as a friend during her 1993 testimony. She added that he was staying at the Sherwood House during her brief stay at the residence.<\/p>\n<p>She would later describe Blount in 2013 before <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/06\/17\/john-barrasso-tracy-stone-manning-biden-withdraw-nomination\/\">Montana lawmakers<\/a> as a \u201cfrankly, frightening\u201d person.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA rather disturbed person, who was not a student, handed me a letter one day on campus and said \u2018would you mail this letter?&#8217;\u201d Stone-Manning said of Blount in the Montana state Senate <a href=\"https:\/\/sg001-harmony.sliq.net\/00309\/Harmony\/en\/PowerBrowser\/PowerBrowserV2\/20130408\/-1\/18597#info_\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hearing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The White House did not return requests for comment.<\/p>\n<h4>\u2018They knew it was my desire to break the law\u2019<\/h4>\n<p>Blount told the DCNF he arrived in Missoula, Montana, in 1988 with the intention of identifying and preventing a future logging site by sabotaging the area with tree spikes. Blount said he was angry that the federal government had criminalized the practice and that he intended to make a political point by carrying out his own high-profile tree spiking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey knew it was my desire to break the law and bring it to public attention,\u201d Blount said in reference to the Missoula-based Earth First community.<\/p>\n<p>Blount told the DCNF he identified his target sabotage forest when his then-girlfriend Guenevere Lilburn, who was John Lilburn\u2019s niece, provided him a map in early 1989 showing a portion of the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho was set to be logged. He said Guenevere obtained the map from her uncle.<\/p>\n<p>Blount\u2019s description of how he obtained the map matches his 1993 <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/John-Blount-testimony.pdf\">court testimony<\/a>, though he also testified at the time that he didn\u2019t get along well with John Lilburn.<\/p>\n<p>Blount testified that it was a core part of his plan to send a letter to the Forest Service after sabotaging the trees. If the authorities weren\u2019t made aware that the trees were unsafe to log, then their criminal efforts to save the trees could have been all for naught, he explained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c[We] had every intention of canceling the sale, but we needed to notify everybody it had been done so the sale would be canceled, and in the event anybody tried to cut down the trees, nobody would be injured,\u201d Blount said of the letter, <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/John-Blount-testimony.pdf\">court records<\/a> show.<\/p>\n<p>He told the DCNF that the letter also got the authorities all fired up over the tree spiking, which helped achieve his other objective of making a political point.<\/p>\n<p>Tree spiking has been <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/06\/11\/tracy-stone-manning-tree-spiking-bureau-land-management\/\">described<\/a> as an \u201ceco-terrorist\u201d tactic because if gone unnoticed, spikes can cause serious injuries to workers, such as when a 23-year-old mill worker in California had his jaw cut in half in 1987 when his saw exploded upon striking an unnoticed tree spike.<\/p>\n<p>Blount told the DCNF it wasn\u2019t a matter of particular concern who sent the letter, just that it needed to be sent. He said John Lilburn informed him before any trees were spiked that Stone-Manning was willing to send the letter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018I found someone to mail the letter,\u2019 was the opening statement,\u201d Blount recalled John Lilburn telling him. \u201cAnd then, of course, Tracy was the name.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John Lilburn told the DCNF in an email it was not true that he informed Blount before the tree spiking that Stone-Manning would send his letter to the Forest Service.<\/p>\n<p>Blount said he did not speak directly with Stone-Manning about sending the letter until after he had sabotaged the forest.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe was not all surprised being handed said letter,\u201d Blount said of Stone-Manning\u2019s reaction when he approached her on the local Missoula college campus in April 1989 with the note he wanted her to send to the Forest Service.<\/p>\n<p>Blount noted how foolish it would have been for him, from a criminal point of view, to find a stone-cold stranger to send the letter, which served a critical role in fulfilling the primary objectives of his criminal conspiracy.<\/p>\n<p>Stone-Manning was granted <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/06\/11\/tracy-stone-manning-tree-spiking-bureau-land-management\/\">legal immunity<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/stone-manning-testimony.pdf\">testify<\/a> at Blount\u2019s criminal trial in 1993. She said during the trial she was \u201csomewhat shocked\u201d upon first reading the contents of Blount\u2019s letter on the grounds of her college campus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hadn\u2019t known this had happened,\u201d she testified. \u201cThis was news to me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Before sending the letter, Stone-Manning retyped it on a rented typewriter in order to keep her fingerprints off the document, she told the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers.com\/image\/350874240\/?terms=%22stone-manning%22&amp;match=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Missoulian<\/a> in June 1993.<\/p>\n<p>She later told the <a href=\"https:\/\/missoulian.com\/news\/local\/montana-deq-director-testified-against-tree-spiker-as-um-student\/article_a1c8086e-7f0c-11e2-bd63-0019bb2963f4.html\">Missoulian<\/a> in 2013 that she sent the letter for Blount because she \u201cdid not trust he would notify the Forest Service if the letter was not sent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stone-Manning and John Lilburn were among the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/scholarworks.umt.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=9226&amp;context=studentnewspaper\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">seven<\/a> individuals subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating the incident in 1989. Stone-Manning did not disclose to authorities at the time that she had sent the letter. Neither Stone-Manning nor John Lilburn faced charges related to the incident.<\/p>\n<p>She was a member of the editorial collective for the 1991 issue of the Earth First journal that contained a non-bylined article gloating that federal investigators were bungling their investigation into the Clearwater tree spiking plot, having misidentified John Lilburn\u2019s vehicle during a search of the Sherwood House. <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/04\/tracy-stone-manning-earth-first-gloated-tree-spiking\/\"><strong>(RELATED: Biden Nominee Helped Edit Radical Paper That Gloated The Feds Were Bungling Investigation Into Tree Spiking Plot)<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Stone-Manning waited nearly four years to come clean to authorities about the role she played in the tree spiking plot. She came forward in early 1993 after Guenevere Lilburn had disclosed to authorities that Stone-Manning had sent the anonymous letter.<\/p>\n<p>Numerous Republican senators have called on President Joe Biden to revoke Stone-Manning\u2019s nomination over her involvement in the tree spiking plot and her alleged dishonesty to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee about the incident. Senate <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/07\/27\/democrats-unite-senate-discharge-nomination-tracy-stone-manning\/\">Democrats<\/a> have brushed aside the allegations, however, and voted unanimously to discharge Stone-Manning\u2019s nomination from the committee in late July.<\/p>\n<p>A final vote for Stone-Manning\u2019s nomination in the Senate has not yet been scheduled.<\/p>\n<h4>Stone-Manning\u2019s alleged boyfriend was a radical Earth First activist<\/h4>\n<p>John Lilburn was never charged with a crime in the tree spiking incident, but his actions prior to the tree spiking provided enough probable cause for authorities to obtain a federal warrant to search the Sherwood House, the lead Forest Service investigator in the case said during Blount\u2019s 1993 trial.<\/p>\n<p>The investigator, Michael Merkley, <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn01.dailycaller.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Merkley-testimony.pdf\">testified<\/a> that the search warrant was granted in part because his investigation revealed that John Lilburn had legally requested and obtained forest sale maps from a ranger station prior to the Clearwater forest tree spiking. The investigator said he found a box of spikes during his search of the Sherwood House.<\/p>\n<p>John Lilburn was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/andy.caffrey\/videos\/488345539837\/\">filmed<\/a> at a June 1989 Earth First event, less than two months after investigators searched the home, warning his fellow activists that the authorities had been tracking their movements.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWild Rockies [Earth First] has been active for maybe a year and a half, and we had the contact house raided on April 29. And I just want everyone to know that it\u2019s going to happen to you,\u201d John Lilburn said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt happened to us, and, well shit we haven\u2019t done anything to deserve it,\u201d John Lilburn added, which elicited laughs from the crowd.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re doing stuff out there, even if you\u2019re not doing anything \u2026 you better be careful,\u201d John Lilburn said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have many answers when all the sudden you feel very trapped, and all the sudden they\u2019re searching your house and you know there\u2019s things that you don\u2019t want you to find.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll I\u2019m saying is, be careful,\u201d John Lilburn concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Later, in November 1989, John Lilburn gave an interview to author Rik Scarce for the 1990 book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B01H5L29FU\/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title\">Eco-Warriors, Understanding the Radical Environmental Movement<\/a>,\u201d in which Lilburn is quoted saying how he and other Missoula Earth First activists carried out a payback tree-sitting protest following the Sherwood House raid as a way of \u201cstriking back, sticking to our high ground, saying, \u2018Fuck you! You\u2019re not going to intimidate me into not doing anything.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>John Lilburn was quoted in the book saying the payback protest, in which three other Earth First activists spent five days camping up on trees near Lindbergh Lake to prevent logging, was the first-ever tree-sit protest in Montana and garnered significant local media coverage.<\/p>\n<p>Stone-Manning was not identified as a member of \u201cLilburn\u2019s gang\u201d in the book, but she was quoted in numerous news articles in August 1989 as an Earth First spokeswoman for a tree-sitting protest near Lindberg Lake that, according to the media reports, meets the exact description of the payback protest John Lilburn described in the book.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers.com\/image\/351616192\/?terms=%22tracy%20stone%22&amp;match=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a> covering the first day of the tree-sit, Stone-Manning was described by name as a \u201cUniversity of Montana student helping the sitters.\u201d The article, which was written by Stone-Manning\u2019s future husband, Richard Manning, stated the action was the first tree-sitting protest in Montana.<\/p>\n<p>Two days later, after the Forest Service barred public access to the site, Stone-Manning was quoted in another <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers.com\/image\/351616642\/?terms=%22tracy%20stone%22&amp;match=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a> as an Earth First spokeswoman saying the authorities were trying to \u201ctake public light away from the protest.<\/p>\n<p>According to the book, John Lilburn said he illegally remained on site of the protest after public access was cut off.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo avoid arrest, Lilburn was forced to hide behind or beneath logging debris whenever anyone came near,\u201d the book states. \u201cThe press was allowed in, however, and the sit received substantial attention throughout Montana.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On the fifth day of the protest, Stone-Manning was quoted in another <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers.com\/image\/351617267\/?terms=%22tracy%20stone%22&amp;match=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">article<\/a> as a \u201cspokeswoman for the tree-sitters.\u201d She announced that the three Earth First tree-sitters had decided to conclude their protest, adding that they accomplished what they set out to do because they \u201cstarted to make some people think.\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2021\/08\/04\/tracy-stone-manning-earth-first-gloated-tree-spiking\/\"><strong><br \/><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact <a href=\"mailto:licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org\">licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The ringleader of a 1989 eco-sabotage incident said he resents the way Bureau of Land Management nominee Tracy Stone-Manning describes their relationship. Stone-Manning sent an anonymous and threatening letter to &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-631247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=631247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/631247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=631247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=631247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=631247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}