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Days After Pruitt Becomes EPA Head, Newly Released Emails Show His Ties to Koch Bros. & Energy Firms - YouTube
Channel: Democracy Now!
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AMY GOODMAN: Thousands of pages of newly released
emails reveal how EPA Administrator Scott
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Pruitt closely collaborated with oil, coal
and gas companies backed by the Koch brothers
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to roll back environmental regulations during
his time as Oklahoma’s attorney general.
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The documents were released just days after
Pruitt was sworn in as the new head of the
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EPA, the agency tasked with curtailing pollution
and safeguarding public health.
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Last week, Senate Democrats unsuccessfully
attempted to postpone Pruitt’s final confirmation
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until the emails were released, but Republicans
pressed forward and confirmed him in a 52-to-46
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vote, largely along party lines.
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As Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt sued
the EPA 14 times.
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The trove of new documents show how energy
companies drafted language for Pruitt’s
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Attorney General Office to use to sue the
EPA over environmental regulations.
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In an email from August 2013 from Matt Ball
of the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity
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to Pruitt’s communications director, Ball
writes, quote, "Thank you to your respective
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bosses and all they are doing to push back
against President Obama’s EPA and its axis
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with liberal environmental groups to increase
energy costs for Oklahomans and American families
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across the states.
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You both work for true champions of freedom
and liberty!"
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These documents were obtained by the media
watchdog group the Center for Media and Democracy
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after a lengthy battle.
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The emails were released because a judge ordered
them released.
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For more, we go to Madison, Wisconsin, where
we’re joined by the group’s executive
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director, Lisa Graves, also the publisher
of ExposedByCMD.org and PRWatch.org.
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Lisa, welcome back to Democracy Now!
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Explain what these emails show.
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You just got thousands of them in the last
two days.
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LISA GRAVES: Well, these emails help show
the cozy relationship between Scott Pruitt
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and the industries that he was tasked with
regulating as the Oklahoma attorney general.
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And so, what they reveal is more of that relationship,
the way in which he was praised by the Koch
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brothers’ operatives, the way in which he
was urged by energy company lobbyists to just
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cut and paste from their materials and from
other documents that they had jointly or worked
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on together to produce.
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And this is part of a longer investigation
that we’ve been conducting about Scott Pruitt
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and about the Republican Attorneys General
Association, where you can see, through the
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documentation we’ve obtained, how much these
industries are paying to curry favor with
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these attorneys general.
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And in this instance, you have this man who
now is the head of our Environmental Protection
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Agency and has such close relationships.
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And I think that the Republican senators,
Senator McConnell and the White House were
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eager to rush his nomination through, because
they feared that more information, more evidence,
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would come out about the closeness of those
relationships.
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And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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We know they’re still stonewalling us.
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We know that there are many thousands more
emails that they have failed to produce and
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that are part of our ongoing set of requests
for information about Scott Pruitt and about
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the communications of his office with these
industries, including Devon Energy, Koch Industries
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and more.
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AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go through some of the
emails.
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In 2013, a lobbyist from the law firm Hunton
& Williams, which represents major utility
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companies, sent Pruitt’s deputy solicitor
general a white paper and talking points.
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The lobbyist suggested the staffer should,
quote, "cut and paste" from it when encouraging
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other states to file comments on an EPA protection
aimed at addressing air pollution.
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LISA GRAVES: Well, right.
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I mean, you have that, that email that just
came out, as well as the emails that were
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discussed by Eric Lipton in his New York Times
story that won a Pulitzer Prize back in 2014,
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2015.
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What you can see from that is this idea—that
email, other emails—that maybe it’s—maybe
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we should call him "Cut-and-Paste Pruitt,"
because, basically, the relationship between
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industry and industry groups or utilities
and Pruitt’s office was so close that there
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are numerous references to saying just cut
and paste this, cut and paste that.
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You know, that’s not what we expect of our
attorneys general.
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That’s not what we expect of the head of
the EPA.
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These guys are not supposed to be doing the
bidding of private industry.
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Private industry has its own lawyers.
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The lawyer who is the head of the Oklahoma
Attorney General’s Office is supposed to
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represent all the people and the public interest,
just as the head of the EPA is supposed to
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represent all Americans, not just the corporations.
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And yet you have this man who has basically
spent his life’s work advancing the industry
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position, targeting and attacking efforts
to regulate the toxin of mercury, other serious
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pollutants, trying to undermine efforts to
address the harms to our climate and more.
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And so that email is just one of many that
shows this pattern that we see of this cut-and-paste
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idea for Scott Pruitt and his team.
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AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about the relationship
that is exposed through these thousands of
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pages of emails that you got through a lawsuit,
a judge ruling just—what was it?—last
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Thursday, last week, that these should be
released immediately, and the Senate moving
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very quickly to confirm Pruitt before the
emails were delivered to you.
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LISA GRAVES: That’s correct.
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The judge ordered that the first set of documents—that
order came down on Thursday afternoon, and
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there was plenty of time for the Senate to
wait to get answers, in part because it wasn’t
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just our requests that were unanswered, but
also numerous requests by senators on the
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Environment and Public Works Committee, that
Pruitt was stonewalling them, as well.
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But there was this rush to push him through.
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Why the rush?
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There was no need for him to be advanced so
quickly to helm the EPA.
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The Senate is entitled to that information.
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More importantly, the American people are
entitled to that information.
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And what these emails show is a very friendly
relationship between Pruitt’s team and these
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energy companies.
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At one point, there’s an email that talks
about his chief of staff wanting to get a
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special tour, basically, to the top of Devon
Tower, the biggest skyscraper in Oklahoma,
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you know, because of this relationship they’ve
cultivated with these energy companies.
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But there’s more.
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You know, there’s more praise from these
energy companies for the job he’s doing.
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And beyond that, as part of our ongoing investigation,
we’ve helped document how Scott Pruitt has
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done closed-door briefings with some huge—some
of the hugest energy companies in the country,
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including Murray Energy, in which they—in
which the panel was calling the Clean Power
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Plan dangerous, the idea that we should be
taking measures to address carbon dangerous.
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These are extreme positions.
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They’re the positions of industry.
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And you see it over and over again in these
emails, the closeness, the coziness of these
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industry lobbyists, these lawyers and the
office that Scott Pruitt was running in Oklahoma.
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AMY GOODMAN: Last month, the EPA administrator
nominee at the time, Pruitt, testified in
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front of the Senate during his confirmation
hearings.
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Senator Jeff Merkley questioned Pruitt about
a 2011 letter the Oklahoma attorney general
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sent to the EPA opposing regulations limiting
emissions from the energy sector.
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Senator Merkley said much of the letter was
largely written by the Oklahoma energy company
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Devon Energy.
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SEN.
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JEFF MERKLEY: You used your office as a direct
extension of an oil company, rather than a
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direct extension of the interests of the public
health of the people of Oklahoma.
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Do you acknowledge that you presented a private
oil company’s position rather than a position
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developed by the people of Oklahoma?
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SCOTT PRUITT: Senator, I—with respect, I
disagree.
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The efforts that I took as attorney general
were representing the interests of the state
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of Oklahoma.
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SEN.
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JEFF MERKLEY: Why do you need an outside oil
company to draft a letter when you have 250
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people working for you?
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SCOTT PRUITT: Senator, as I’ve indicated,
that was an effort that was protecting the
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state’s interest and making sure that we
made the voices of all Oklahomans heard on
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a very important industry to our state.
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There was concern—
SEN.
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JEFF MERKLEY: You said all heard, but you
only sent it on behalf of a single voice:
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the oil company.
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Thank you.
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AMY GOODMAN: So, that was Senator Merkley
questioning Scott Pruitt, who was just approved
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as EPA administrator.
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Your response, Lisa Graves?
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LISA GRAVES: Well, Senator Merkley got that
exactly right.
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It’s really astonishing for someone in a
position of public trust to give such special
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privilege to some of the richest corporations,
the richest interests in our country, over
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the interests of ordinary Americans for cleaner
water, cleaner air, for efforts to address
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harm to our climate.
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And I have to say, if the American people
want to learn more about the swamp that Trump
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is drawing from, not draining, but the swamp
that he’s perpetuating and expanding, they
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can go listen to that C-SPAN debate all night
last Thursday into Friday morning, where Senator
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Whitehouse, Senator Merkley, other senators
were speaking out eloquently about the conflicts
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that Mr. Pruitt’s actions represent, the
concerns, the grave concerns, they have about
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what he will do to our environmental protections,
and just the depth of his stonewalling of
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the Senate, and, more importantly, the American
people, about the true extent of his relationships
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with these companies and how much he will
use his office to do their bidding and not
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to advance the interests of all people.
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And that letter that Senator Merkley pointed
out is a salutary example of how he perceives
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his role is to represent their interests.
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He thinks that that’s basically representative
government action.
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Those corporations don’t have a right to
vote.
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People do.
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The American people have a say in these measures,
and these statutes are on the books to protect
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us, not to protect oil companies and energy
companies, who have polluted our waters and
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our air and have harmed our climate.
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AMY GOODMAN: Lisa, I want to get to two other
issues.
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One is the headline today, Trump rescinding
the Obama directive on bathroom use, dropping
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protection for transgender youth.
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Clearly, now, the attorney general, Jeff Sessions,
has played a key role in this.
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You wrote a letter opposing Jeff Sessions
as attorney general.
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We’re seeing this as one of his first acts.
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Can you quickly comment?
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LISA GRAVES: Well, I’m not surprised, but
I’m gravely disappointed, that the Office
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of the Attorney General would be used in the
way that Senator Sessions, now Attorney General
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Sessions, is using it to advance discriminatory
policies, policies that hurt some of our most
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vulnerable people in our country.
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And those are our young people who face such
a high risk of suicide.
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I think it’s an indictment of his character,
of Jeff Sessions’ character, that he would
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push his office forward to undo the protections
that have been put in place to try to protect
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these young people.
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