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For Immediate Release
August, 22 2019, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
(202) 667-6982
White House Aides Evacuate Over Asbestos Risks as Administration Moves To Keep Deadly Carcinogen Legal
Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway and other senior White House aides have vacated their West Wing offices while asbestos is removed - even as the Trump administration is manipulating a federal chemical safety law to keep asbestos legal.
WASHINGTON
Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway and other senior White House aides have vacated their West Wing offices while asbestos is removed - even as the Trump administration is manipulating a federal chemical safety law to keep asbestos legal.
Bloomberg reported that a number of staffers, also including policy aide Stephen Miller and economic aide Larry Kudlow, have temporarily relocated while new fire safety equipment and other updates are being installed. The asbestos removal comes despite the fact that President Trump is a longstanding fan of the deadly fireproof material, a notorious carcinogen that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.
In his 1997 book, "The Art of the Comeback," Trump argued that asbestos is "100 percent safe, once applied." In 2005, Trump testified before Congress, claiming asbestos would have kept the World Trade Center from collapsing following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
And last year, one of the world's biggest producers of asbestos, a Russian company with ties to Vladimir Putin,used an image of the president to label pallets of asbestos "APPROVED BY DONALD TRUMP." The company said it was praising Trump for the administration's efforts to keep asbestos legal for use in the U.S.
"While these measures are being taken to protect White House employees, the president and his EPA chief Andrew Wheeler are actively working to ensure this deadly carcinogen remains legal," said Linda Reinstein, president and founder of the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization, or ADAO. "Every American should be protected from exposure to asbestos, and the only way to ensure that is to ban it once and for all from being imported and used in the U.S."
"When it comes to his own family and closest aides, President Trump takes steps to protect them from asbestos," said EWG President Ken Cook. "But for the 327 million Americans who don't work in the White House, the president and Wheeler don't show as much concern. Protecting public health was once a top priority for presidents, but not now, and there is no better example than the Trump administration's outrageous push to keep asbestos legal."
In 2016, Congress passed legislation revamping the woefully weak federal Toxic Substances Control Act finally giving the Environmental Protection Agency the authority to ban asbestos and other dangerous substances. But under Wheeler's direction, the agency is laying the groundwork to allow asbestos to remain legal.
In April, Wheeler issued a new rule that would allow manufacturers to resume abandoned uses of asbestos if approved by the EPA. Internal agency memos, obtained by ADAO and reported by The New York Times, show that top political appointees at EPA ignored calls by agency scientists and lawyers to implement an outright ban.
The EPA banned asbestos, in 1989, only to see the ban overturned two years later after a court challenge by the chemical industry. Since 1989:
- More than 1 million Americans have died from preventable asbestos-caused diseases, according to ADAO's analysis of data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, at the University of Washington.
- Although domestic production of asbestos has ended, ADAO's analysis of U.S. Geological Survey data shows that an estimated 375,000 metric tons of asbestos have been imported to the U.S. The chlor-alkali industry is the main importer of raw asbestos, which relies on it to produce chlorine and other chemicals.
- Nearly 70 other countries have banned asbestos.
The Environmental Working Group Action Fund's analysis of federal mortality data estimates that asbestos-triggered diseases kill an estimated 15,000 Americans a year. Last year, an international peer-reviewed study found the annual death toll from asbestos exposure may be much higher - nearly 40,000 Americans a year, and more than 255,000 a year worldwide.
Members of Congress are making efforts to block the Trump administration's move to allow asbestos to remain legal for use. Legislation sponsored by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) would ban the import, manufacture and distribution of all forms of asbestos.
The Alan Reinstein Ban Asbestos Now Act would also require the EPA, Labor Department and Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a comprehensive review to assess the "presence of asbestos in residential, commercial, industrial, public, and school buildings" and "the extent of exposure and risk to human health associated with the asbestos present in such buildings."
The legislation is named after Linda Reinstein's husband, Alan Reinstein, who died in May 2006 of mesothelioma, an incurable cancer caused only by asbestos.
The Environmental Working Group is a community 30 million strong, working to protect our environmental health by changing industry standards.
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Sharing of IRS Data With DHS for Trump's Mass Deportations Has Gone as Horribly as Expected
"Sharing this private taxpayer data creates chaos, and as we’ve seen this past year, if federal agents use this private information to track down individuals, it can endanger lives.”
Feb 11, 2026
Privacy officials at the Internal Revenue Service were sidelined in discussions last year about the Department of Homeland Security's demand for taxpayer data about people the Trump administration believed were not authorized to be in the US, and a court filing by the IRS Wednesday may have illustrated some of the officials' worst fears about the plan.
According to a sworn declaration by Dottie Romo, the chief risk and control officer at the IRS, the agency improperly shared private taxpayer data on thousands of people with immigration enforcement officers.
The data was shared, the Washington Post reported, even in cases in which DHS officials could not provide data needed to positively identify a specific individual.
Two federal courts have preliminarily found that the IRS and DHS acted unlawfully when they moved forward with the plan to share taxpayer addresses and have blocked the agencies from continuing the arrangement. A third case filed by Public Citizen Litigation Group, Alan Morrison, and Raise the Floor Alliance is on appeal in the DC Circuit.
But before the agreement was enjoined by the courts, DHS requested the addresses of 1.2 million people from the IRS, and the tax agency sent data on 47,000 people in response.
Thousands of people's confidential data was erroneously included in the release, sources who were familiar with the matter told the Post.
Despite Romo's sworm statement saying an error had been made by the agencies, a DHS spokesperson continued to defend the data sharing agreement, telling the Post that “the government is finally doing what it should have all along.”
“Information sharing across agencies is essential to identify who is in our country, including violent criminals, determine what public safety and terror threats may exist so we can neutralize them, scrub these individuals from voter rolls, and identify what public benefits these aliens are using at taxpayer expense,” the spokesperson told the newspaper. “With the IRS information specifically, DHS plans to focus on enforcing long-neglected criminal laws that apply to illegal aliens."
Records have shown that a large majority of people who have been arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents since President Donald Trump began his mass deportation and detention campaign have not had criminal records, despite the administration's persistent claims that officers are arresting "the worst of the worst" violent criminals.
Undocumented immigrants are also statistically less likely than citizens to commit crimes, and have not been found to attempt to participate in US elections illegally.
When DHS initially asked for taxpayer data last year, IRS employees denounced the request as "Nixonian" and warned that a data sharing arrangement would be illegal. Providing taxpayer information to third parties is punishable by civil and criminal penalties, and an IRS contractor, Charles Littlejohn, was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty in 2023 to leaking the tax returns of Trump and other wealthy people.
Trump has sued the IRS for $10 billion in damages due to the leak.
Romo on Wednesday did not state whether the IRS would inform individuals whose confidential data was sent to immigration officials; they could be entitled to financial compensation.
Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, noted that judging from Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, "thousands of trillions of dollars" should be paid to those affected by the data breach.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, said the "breach of confidential information was part of the reason we filed our lawsuit in the first place."
"Sharing this private taxpayer data creates chaos," she said, "and as we’ve seen this past year, if federal agents use this private information to track down individuals, it can endanger lives.”
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‘What Oligarchy Looks Like’: AI Giants Pledge to Pump $100 Million Into 2026 Midterms
The goal of the PAC is to elect a Congress that will prohibit individual states from passing their own AI regulations.
Feb 11, 2026
Silicon Valley elites are planning to spend big money in 2026 to ensure that the next US Congress will be even more friendly to the artificial intelligence industry than the current Republican-led version.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Leading the Future, a super political action committee (PAC) focused on electing AI-friendly members of Congress, is pledging to spend at least $100 million to influence the 2026 midterm election.
The PAC, which is backed by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and other AI heavyweights, is working to elect lawmakers who will pass legislation that will set a single set of AI regulations that will take effect throughout the US, overriding any restrictions placed on the technology by state governments.
The massive sum the PAC is dedicating to the 2026 midterms prompted Matthew Stoller, researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, to remark that this is "what oligarchy looks like."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) tried to get a provision preempting state AI regulations slipped into the GOP's major budget package last year, but it was ultimately taken out amid bipartisan resistance to giving the AI industry a blank regulatory check.
President Donald Trump subsequently signed an executive order instructing the US Department of Justice to create a task force that would sue any state governments that enact supposedly "onerous and excessive" regulations on the technology.
However, as an executive order, this directive can be overturned by any future president who supports stronger AI regulation.
CNN noted that Leading the Future's planned flood of cash is coming at a time when AI has been drawing skepticism from factions within both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for instance, has thrown his support behind a "Citizen Bill of Rights for AI," which would provide privacy protections for end users and place restrictions on the construction of AI data centers.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), meanwhile, has called for a full moratorium on the construction of new AI data centers.
Leading the Future also appears to understand that the AI industry's reputation is becoming toxic for voters.
As Fast Company reported on Wednesday, the super PAC has launched negative ads against Democratic New York US congressional candidate Alex Bores by highlighting his past work at Palantir, which has become controversial for providing technology used by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to carry out mass deportations.
Current and former Palantir employees told Fast Company that they believe the ad against Bores to be highly deceptive, as Palantir wasn't nearly as integrated with ICE operations during his tenure as it is today.
"If Bores’ campaign is one that would restrict the tech industry’s growth," one former Palantir employee told Fast Company, "and his base is one that is already primed to be critical of Palantir, people (like me!) who watch this ad wouldn’t suspect that it’s people with significant interests in Palantir and the broader industry that are funding the ads, too."
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Texas Lawmakers Sound Alarm on 'Torture, Killing, and Inhumane Treatment' of Detainees in Fort Bliss ICE Facility
At least three inmates have died in the facility in just two months, including one who witnesses say was choked to death by guards.
Feb 11, 2026
A group of Texas legislators have delivered an urgent warning about the treatment of detainees in the country’s largest immigration detention camp, which sits on an Army base in El Paso.
“We have received numerous credible reports of torture, killing, and inhumane treatment of detained individuals at the Camp East Montana migrant detention facility, located within Fort Bliss,” said Rep. Ana-María Rodríguez Ramos (D-102), who joined 35 other Democrats in the Texas state House on Tuesday to demand an investigation into the facility.
Camp East Montana was constructed in August as part of the Trump administration's effort to ramp up Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) "mass deportation" of immigrants. The selection of Fort Bliss has historical precedent, having previously been used as a site for the internment of Japanese people during World War II.
Using a secretive contract undisclosed to the public, the Pentagon awarded roughly $1.2 billion to a private contractor in July to construct a sprawling tent city to hold around 5,000 people rounded up by ICE.
"Almost immediately upon its opening, detainees, their families, and legal watchdog organizations began bringing attention to conditions that were deemed unsuitable for detainees, even by internal standards set by Immigration and Customs Enforcement," the legislators wrote in a letter to state Rep. Cole Hefner (R-5), who chairs the House Committee on Homeland Security, Public Safety, and Veterans Affairs.
During the camp's first 50 days of operation, ICE inspections revealed that it had violated more than 60 federal detention standards. The report, compiled in September, was not released to the public, but was reported on by the Washington Post, which spoke with dozens of detainees.
"On ICE's webpage titled 'Detention Management,' it states that 'detention is non-punitive,'" the legislators wrote Tuesday. "Yet, according to reporting by the Washington Post based on sworn statements from dozens of detainees, the facility, for months, was being run like a prison in a country without standards for oversight, health, or safety for the inmates."
"There were complaints that the toilets and sinks didn't work for the first few weeks after the facility's opening last August. There were complaints logged that, for the first few weeks, the facility didn't adequately feed detainees. They also complained about another violation of ICE standards: the lack of access to telephones for detainees to communicate with family and legal representation," they continued.
Earlier this week, US Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), who visited the facility unannounced on Friday, disclosed that at least two cases of tuberculosis and 18 cases of Covid-19 had been identified at the facility.
"While the private corporation continues to pocket our tax dollars, it's clear the conditions are only getting worse," she said.
The state lawmakers also cited a letter sent by the ACLU, Human Rights Watch, and several other civil rights groups in December addressing "cases of illegal, extrajudicial attempts to deport detainees to Mexico."
One inmate, a Cuban immigrant identified as "Benjamin," said he was threatened by guards who attempted to make him sign a letter agreeing to be deported to Mexico.
“The guards told him that if he did not, they would handcuff him, put a bag over his head, and send him to Mexico. Benjamin refused to sign the document, stating that he was scared to go to Mexico, because he had heard that migrants are often kidnapped, robbed, or killed there,” the ACLU letter said.
The letter also provided several examples of inmates being subject to physical and sexual assault at the hands of officers.
"People detained at Fort Bliss report that officers have crushed detainees’ testicles with their fingers, slammed detained people to the ground, stomped on detained people and punched their faces, and beaten detained people even after they are cuffed and restrained," it said.
The legislators also noted that three detainees have died in the facility in just two months.
On December 3, 48-year-old Guatemalan inmate Francisco Gaspar-Andrés was reported to have died of natural causes, namely liver and kidney failure, according to an ICE press release.
Since then, two other inmates have died. On January 14, 36-year-old Victor Manuel Diaz was found dead of an apparent suicide, though the cause of death remains under investigation.
Prior to that, the Department of Homeland Security reported that the death of another inmate, 55-year-old Geraldo Lunas Campos from Cuba, on January 3, was also a suicide.
However, witnesses have said they saw guards choking Lunas Campos and that he was heard saying, "I can’t breathe." His death has since been ruled a homicide after an autopsy revealed the cause of death to have been “asphyxia due to neck and torso compression.”
The letter notes that while Lunas Campos was "convicted of heinous crimes," including sexual contact with an 11-year-old, "he was not sentenced to death by a judge or jury—he was killed by someone responsible for his care, for unknown reasons or circumstances."
"It is our responsibility as Texas legislators to ensure that we can trust that jails, prisons, and detention facilities in Texas operate to our high standards and expectations," the lawmakers said. "We must learn more, investigate, and provide answers to the millions of Americans demanding the truth. We must also ensure this does not happen again in any federal detention facility."
The call for an investigation comes as DHS plans to rapidly convert at least around two dozen warehouses into massive new detention centers across the country. At least three of these locations are planned for Texas. One of them, planned for the town of Hutchins outside Dallas, is expected to hold around 9,500 inmates.
The legislators said: "Human rights abuses, ignoring due process requirements, repeated violation of federal regulations, clear disrespect for the United States Constitution, and murder are unconscionable on any inch of American soil—but these crimes against real people are happening in Texas, and require proud Texans to stand up in defense of our Constitution and use our power to end this widespread abuse."
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