Environmental activist takes the Fifth, is threatened with contempt citation Wednesday, February 13, 2002
By CHARLES POPE SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT
WASHINGTON -- A House subcommittee yesterday vowed to pursue contempt charges against a former leader of an environmental group linked to fire bombings in the Northwest after he frustrated lawmakers by refusing to answer questions.
The threat was directed to Craig Rosebraugh, a former senior official with the Earth Liberation Front after Rosebraugh invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 40 times during an appearance before the House Resources Subcommittee on Forests and Forest Health.
Rosebraugh refused to answer questions about where ELF gets its funding and who is paying his attorney's fees. He appeared only after the subcommittee subpoenaed him.
Each time he replied: "I'll take the Fifth Amendment."
"Obviously, the witness has no intention of cooperating, which is no surprise," subcommittee Chairman Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., said. "But it is not without repercussions."
McInnis said the Fifth Amendment protection isn't universal and that Rosebraugh refused to answer some questions that are not protected by the constitutional right. Those questions will be submitted to him in writing, and if he refuses to answer again, McInnis said he would ask the subcommittee to charge Rosebraugh with contempt of Congress.
The hearing was held to consider legislation to crack down on what officials say is the growing violence and brazenness of some environmental groups. Among the examples was a firebomb attack June 1 on the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture that caused $5.3 million damage. ELF took credit for the attack.
The group has also been linked to a 1998 arson in Olympic National Forest that caused $1.9 million in damage as well as a report last year of "several hundred" spiked trees in Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
In the most infamous case, ELF took credit for a firebombing in Vail, Colo., which destroyed a restaurant, four ski lifts and other structures to protest the expansion of ski resorts. Officials estimated the damage to be between $12 million and $26 million.
Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., the subcommittee's ranking member, said he could understand Rosebraugh's "frustration" with the government's environmental policies under the Bush administration, "but it's not an excuse for violence."
And, he added, although most environmental groups pursue change though traditional means, some groups, including ELF, "abandoned democracy and embraced violence. In that sense, they are all wrong."
There was wide agreement that such violent actions are growing and troubling, but fewer answers on what to do to curb it.
"How best to deal with this home-grown brand of al-Qaida?" asked Rep. George Nethercutt, R-Wash. "I propose that we use the model that has worked so well in Afghanistan. Improve our intelligence. Free the hands of law enforcement authorities. Isolate terrorists from allies and assistance. Cut off their funding. Give them no rest and no quarter."
Nethercutt has introduced a bill to toughen penalties for those convicted of ecoterrorism, including "a possible death penalty sentence for violations resulting in death."
Rosebraugh provided only one answer, to a question posed by Nethercutt. "Are you a citizen of the United States?"
"Yes, sir," he said.
But in testimony he submitted but did not read, Rosebraugh's ideology was clear. "I fully praise those individuals who take direct action, by any means necessary, to stop the destruction of the natural world and threat to all life," the statement said.
"They are the heroes, risking their freedom and lives so that we as a species as well as all life forms can continue to exist on the planet."