After a brutal hearing exposed connections between activist groups and a Biden cabinet official, all three major networks ignored the revelations in their coverage.
During an April 30 hearing before the House Committee on Natural Resources, Capital Research Center President Scott Walter and The Daily Signal Managing Editor Tyler O’Neill hammered Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland and her department over damning allegations.
According to Walter, at the center of the allegations is that Haaland’s daughter Somah Haaland is a member of the radical environmentalist group Pueblo Action Alliance (PAA) which is plagued with communist connections. Even worse, Walter asserted that Deb Haaland has other connections to the PAA and that the group influences the policies of the Department of the Interior.
Echoing Walter’s sentiments, O’Neill addressed the negative impact that Deb Haaland’s policies have on American energy, urging Congress to get to the bottom of the far-left infiltration of the Department of the Interior under President Biden.
Tellingly, the big three networks entirely ignored this hearing in their evening coverage on April 31 and May 1, as ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News opted to cover other topics.
On April 30, NBC Nightly News had time to talk about malfunctioning iPhone alarms and fearmonger about Russians on social media. In lieu of Deb Haaland’s scandals, ABC World News Tonight brought its viewers the story of a car crashing into a store in New Mexico and a death in a bounce house. The latter story also made it into CBS Evening News coverage, alongside the news that online scammers are targeting seniors. Stop the presses!
Here’s What the Legacy Media Missed: Deb Haaland’s Damning Allegations
After detailing the communist connections of the PAA, Walter brought up Deb Haaland’s daughter PAA media organizer Somah Haaland. He also ripped the Department of the Interior, saying, It’s shocking the Interior Department not only treats Pueblo Action Alliance as a source of policy wisdom but also appears to have made official policy with bias toward the alliance and provided improper assistance to the alliance.
Walter went on to point out a case where Deb Haaland had put the concerns of such environmentalist groups first while ignoring the financial damage predicted by Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren.
Walter also mentioned that multiple meetings between the secretary and Pueblo Action Alliance officials have taken place and excoriated Deb Haaland for promoting PAA by having its insignia appear in public photographs beginning her first day in office.
Moreover, Walter noted that PAA had posted these photographs on social media, later adding, Activists have promoted Secretary Haaland’s involvement in a film produced by the director of PAA, which demands that oil, gas and mineral leasing outside of the Chaco National Historical Park be ended, a question on which the Secretary officially ruled in favor of PAA’s demand.
A ‘Sue and Settle’ Plot?
When Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) mentioned a case of close cooperation between the Department of the Interior and leftist activists, O’Neill unearthed a disturbing pattern of collaboration.
What we’ve seen over and over again, in this case in particular as well, this ‘sue and settle’ strategy, where an activist group that shares the broad policy preferences of the administration, sues an administrative agency for a change in the law, claiming that there’s a legal requirement, O’Neill told Gosar. And then what the agency winds up doing is settling that lawsuit, agreeing to implement the legal requirement. O’Neill alleged that the agency repeatedly used this duck process and transparency requirements.
Earlier in the hearing, O’Neill noted that the leftist Sierra Club successfully lobbied for a policy resulting in the smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf in history. He explained efforts by the leftist grant-making behemoth Arabella Advisors and the Soros-funded Tides Foundation to pour vast amounts of dark money into environmentalist groups.
To sum up the situation at the Department of Interior, O’Neill explained that the left’s dark money network is propping up radical environmentalist groups that help steer policy at Interior.
Disturbingly, the leftist media couldn’t have cared any less.
