(Beth Clifton collage)
The Donald Trump cabinet appointee who should have animal history mostly does not
WASHINGTON D.C.––Brooke Rollins, Pam Bondi, and Linda McMahon, among U.S. president-elect Donald Trump’s latest cabinet nominees, bring to their nominations highly varied records pertaining to animals.
Brooke Rollins, Trump’s prospective Secretary of Agriculture, if confirmed would become responsible for Animal Welfare Act enforcement. Rollins’ public and political record, however, appears to include no awareness on her part that the Animal Welfare Act exists.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice for Attorney General, has had a mostly positive record on animal issues, along with an allegation against her of dog theft, settled out of court.
Linda McMahon, Trump’s would-be Secretary of Education, was sued multiple times in multiple nations by the World Wildlife Fund, in a series of cases running for more than ten years.
Brooke Rollins. (Wikimedia photo)
“Small town girl” Brooke Leslie Rollins
Brooke Leslie Rollins, 52, describing herself as “a small town girl from Glen Rose, Texas,” did in fact grow up on her family’s ranch, participating in 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America activities.
“Rollins stayed involved with both of those organizations and has been hands-on in the show cattle careers of her four children,” according to the 122-year-old agribusiness periodical Successful Farming.
Rollins at Texas A&M University earned a degree with honors in agricultural development, essentially a business major with an agribusiness accent, involving little or no direct contact with animals, and was the first female student body president at Texas A&M.
Despite her rural background, Rollins scarcely stayed down on the farm. Neither has she been a “small town girl” in her adult life.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Career in law & politics
Instead, Rollins picked up a Juris Doctorate with honors from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, population one million.
Rollins then worked as a litigation attorney in Dallas, population 1.3 million.
After that, Rollins clerked for a federal judge, residing with her husband Mark and four children in Fort Worth, population one million.
While in Fort Worth, Rollins headed the Texas Public Policy Foundation for fifteen years, often described by media during her tenure as an anti-tax group.
Rollins moved on to the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, population 6.3 million, during the first Donald Trump presidency, serving at various times as director of the Domestic Policy Council, assistant to the president for strategic initiatives, and director of the Office of American Innovation.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Trump agricultural policy
At least some of Rollins’ work for Trump reportedly involved agricultural policy.
Agricultural policy during the Trump era included the introduction of use of “ventilation shutdown” on an unprecedented scale to kill pigs who could not be trucked to slaughter due to slaughterhouse closures during the COVID-19 crisis of 2020-2021, and in response to the avian influenza H5N1.
Unclear, though, is whether Rollins had anything to do with that. Primarily responsible would have been Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture throughout the first Trump administration.
Following the first Trump administration, Rollins became chief executive and president of the America First Policy Institute, promoting the Trump re-election campaign and policy blueprint, and policy Director for Texas governor Rick Perry.
Fake service dog in training.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Rick Perry
The Rick Perry record on animal issues, incidentally, includes having in May 2014 killed a ban proposed by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission on hunting rattlesnakes by pouring gasoline down their holes.
This, however, was after Perry had received accolades from animal advocacy groups, including the American SPCA and the Humane Society of the United States, for signing a 2011 bill to establish minimal standards for commercial dog breeders, a 2013 bill that banned the use of gas chambers for killing dogs and cats at animal shelters, and a 2013 bill allowing “service dogs” into restaurants.
Overlooked was that Perry in 2011 allowed hunters to shoot feral pigs from helicopters, encouraged shooting wild burros in Big Bend Ranch State Park, and in 2009 boasted of personally shooting a coyote in self-defense inside the Austin city limits.
Murphy-Brown pigs.
(Smithfield photo)
“Rollins has not offered a lot of policy about agriculture”
Reported Progressive Farmer writer Chris Clayton, “Rollins has not offered a lot of policy about agriculture at the American First Policy Institute, but the group has campaigned against Chinese ownership of U.S. property, an issue that has drawn a lot of attention in agriculture over the past few years.”
That includes the 2013 acquisition of the pig producer Smithfield Foods, including the subsidiary Murphy-Brown, by the Chinese-owned WH Group, which has made no difference whatever to the 18 million pigs per year sent to slaughter by Smithfield.
“If confirmed,” Clayton added, “Rollins would be the country’s second female agriculture secretary. Ann Venneman was the first woman to lead USDA from 2001-2005 under then-President George W. Bush.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
Why does Marty Irby think Rollins will “drain the swamp”?
Rollins’ nomination to head the U.S. Department of Agriculture, with more than 100,000 personnel and a $213 billion annual budget, was immediately endorsed by many of the biggest agribusiness lobbies, including the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Marty Irby, now director and board secretary at the Organization for Competitive Markets, after lobbying stints for the Humane Society of the U.S. and Animal Wellness Action, expressed hope on Facebook that Rollins would “Drain the Swamp of the bureaucracy at USDA that continues to put corporate multinational interests in China and Brazil above the American Family Farmer.”
Marty Irby & friend.
Irby praises “our friend Pam Bondi”
Irby also congratulated “our friend Pam Bondi on being nominated as U.S. Attorney General,” describing her as “an amazing and tireless advocate for animals,” and posting a photo of Bondi “on the far right in the Oval Office with us at the signing of the PACT Act in 2019.”
The PACT Act , as summarized by Associated Press “prohibits extreme acts of cruelty when they occur in interstate commerce or on federal property.”
The PACT Act exempts, however, anything done in connection with legal hunting, fishing, or trapping; “customary and normal” agricultural and veterinary practices; slaughtering animals for food; pest control; medical and scientific research; euthanasia; or actions “necessary to protect the life or property of a person.”
HSUS president Kitty Block is at left, Donald Trump at right, with Humane Society Legislative Fund president Sara Amundson directly behind Trump. Bondi, at far right, was out of the picture. (Beth Clifton collage)
So what does the PACT Act cover?
Most vertebrate species are otherwise covered, including birds, reptiles, and amphibians, but fish and invertebrates are not covered at all.
Since the major animal use industries are completely exempted, including most uses of animals that occur in interstate commerce and on federal property such as National Parks, National Wildlife Refuges, and National Forests, the PACT Act actually prohibits practically nothing.
(See HSUS, Donald Trump, & the PACT Act: The Art of the Deal.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
What the U.S. Attorney General means to animals
The nomination of Bondi to become U.S. Attorney General is, however, of particular importance to animals and animal advocates because it is the U.S. Attorney General’s office that oversees federal criminal prosecutions, enforcing––for example––the federal laws against transporting fighting dogs, gamecocks, and animal fighting paraphernalia across state lines.
A multitude of offenses against animals have now been criminalized, which a generation ago were punishable at the federal level––if at all––only as violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.
As Animal Welfare Act violations, the recently criminalized offenses were subject only to civil penalties.
Pam Bondi & Donald Trump.
Criminal penalties moved authority
Introducing criminal penalties moved much of the responsibility for enforcing the federal laws against animal abuses and misuses from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to the Attorney General’s office, although the primary investigative responsibility remains with the USDA Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service.
As Florida attorney general, then-Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne Pacelle, now heading Animal Wellness Action, blogged in January 2015 that, “Pam Bondi made animal protection a serious priority.”
In July 2014, Pacelle remembered, Bondi “shut down a Jacksonville puppy mill and puppy importer, who had been hawking sick English bulldog puppies to unsuspecting sellers over the Internet. She’s strongly supported decoupling greyhound racing and casino-style gambling,” Pacelle said, and “supported legislation to require greyhound tracks to report injuries.
Wayne Pacelle with friend Lily.
(Facebook photo)
“On a personal level”
“On a personal level,” Pacelle continued, “Bondi brings an adoptable shelter dog to every cabinet meeting to promote adoption.”
Elected attorney general in 2010, Bondi was re-elected in 2014 with the endorsement of the HSUS political arm, the Humane Society Legislative Fund.
The Jacksonville puppy mill Pacelle mentioned was actually more in the pit bull breeding business than the English bulldog import business, reportedly selling about 700 dogs in five years of operation, under five different business names.
“The breeders allegedly sold the puppies for $1,500 to $2,300 each, totaling more than $1 million in potential profits. Many of the puppies sold suffered from congenital defects, parasites, or other serious health or behavioral issues,” reported Palm Beach Post staff writer Christine Stapleton.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Enforced gestation crate initiative
Bondi in 2013 represented the State of Florida in defense of a 2002 law passed by ballot initiative that banned raising sows in gestation crates that do not allow them to turn around. Only two pig farms in Florida were affected by the law. Both shut down.
One of the pig farmers, Stephen Basford, “sued the state in 2010 for the cost of the barns and other equipment he had used for his farm,” recalled Gary Fineout of Associated Press.
“He won at the circuit court level and the state,” represented by Bondi personally, “appealed. The First District Court of Appeal ruled that the state owed Basford $505,000 plus interest,” Fineout wrote.
Pam Bondi has had several St. Bernards. This is not the one involved in the case that originated out of Hurricane Katrina.
Tried to keep Katrina dog
As a Hillsborough County prosecutor, Bondi in October 2005 lost her St. Bernard to cancer.
Nine days later Bondi adopted another St. Bernard from the Humane Society of Pinellas County.
Her new St. Bernard had come from St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana soon after Hurricane Katrina, and had been left at the St. Bernard Parish Animal Shelter for safekeeping after his people, Steven and Doreen Couture, were forced to evacuate because of a broken levee.
Asked to return the St. Bernard, “Bondi initially dug in her heels and hired a bulldog litigator,” recounted DeMorris A. Lee and Colleen Jenkins of the St. Petersburg Times.
In May 2007, however, facing a jury trial, Bondi returned the St. Bernard to the Coutures.
(Beth Clifton collage)
Prosecuted bear poachers
Bondi at a December 19, 2018 media conference held in ZooTampa at Lowry Park announced the arrests of nine alleged bear poachers, seven men and two women, after an 11-month investigation.
“Bondi said the defendants lured the bears by placing food like large amounts of dog food, peanut butter and donuts, then used large packs of hounds to chase and maul the bears. The group then posted photos and video to social media,” summarized 10 News, WTSP Tampa.
“They called the baiting events ‘Sunday Funday.’ Cubs were sometimes victimized. When bears climbed up trees, the defendants would hit the tree to get the animals to fall down so the dogs could get them. In one instance, someone climbed a tree to knock the bear down.”
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Humane Leader” award from HSUS
Said Bondi, “This is not hunting. This is not a sport. It’s cruelty to animals,” Bondi said, adding that “Some of the dogs were sold using the videos to show how aggressive they were.”
All nine defendants were eventually convicted of related offenses.
The Humane Society of the United States in 2019 presented “Humane Leader” awards to both Bondi and Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, a pit bull advocate and wife of trophy hunter Eric Trump.
Linda McMahon. (Wikipedia photo)
In this corner, Linda McMahon
Secretary of Education nominee Linda McMahon, wife of second-generation wrestling promoter Vince McMahon Jr., fought a running battle for more than a decade, 1993-2003, with the World Wildlife Fund over use of the trademarked acronym ”WWF.”
The dispute included lawsuits won by the World Wildlife Fund in both Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Linda McMahon, who has no apparent record otherwise in animal advocacy, on July 8, 2000 attended a conference on chemosterilants and immunocontraceptives as alternatives to conventional spay/neuter surgery, hosted at Bentley College in Waltham, Massachusetts, by Esther Mechler, then of Spay/USA, now heading the United Spay Alliance.
(See Who keeps the spirit of prevention alive in animal welfare? by Esther Mechler.)
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Getting the F out”
After Linda McMahon introduced herself, at the close of the conference, ANIMALS 24-7 took the opportunity to briefly interview her about the “WWF” case.
The World Wrestling Federation in May 2002 changed names to World Wrestling Entertainment. Linda McMahon introduced the change as “Getting the F out.”
The World Wildlife Fund meanwhile demanded $90 million from World Wrestling Entertainment, in settlement of $360 million in damage claims.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“We will not pay extortion”
Asked for comment, Linda McMahon told ANIMALS 24-7, “We will not pay extortion or send $90 million of our hard-earned money to Swiss bank accounts.”
The McMahon association with Donald Trump dates back at least to a 2007 Trump appearance on one of their Wrestlemania broadcasts.
Linda McMahon two years later retired as World Wrestling Entertain chief executive to enter politics. She was elected to the Connecticut Board of Education in 2008, but lost twice in runs for each of the two Connecticut seats in the U.S. Senate seat, to Richard Blumenthal in 2010 and Chris Murphy in 2012.
Beth & Merritt Clifton with friends.
She reportedly donated $6 million to the Trump presidential campaign in 2016.
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The post The animal backgrounds of Trump cabinet nominees Rollins, Bondi, & McMahon appeared first on Animals 24-7.