The Swamp Tries to Stick it to Trump over Warren Casino, Fails

Elizabeth Warren’s Indiana casino Fauxcahontas inoculation scheme, has gotten got even weirder.

The Swamp that so hates President Donald J. Trump appears to have attempted to circumvent the political leadership of the Department of the Interior on July 24 by initially expressing support for Warren’s casino, only to find themselves having to retract that support later in the day.

RedState.com has obtained an early draft of the testimony of Mr. Darryl LaCounte of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) before the Sub-Committee on Indian, Insular, and Alaska Native Affairs in which Mr. LaCounte says, “the Department supports this legislation”; this legislation being H.R. 5244, the House companion to Sen. Warren’s Indian casino bill.

But that is not what Mr. LaCounte said at the hearing later that same day. “I am prepared to take no position on the bill today,” LaCounte begrudgingly stated at the hearing (55:37).

It appears as though LaCounte’s office – or perhaps lobbyists for Malaysian behemoth Gentings, which is bankrolling Warren’s casino and the lobbying effort behind it – circulated the earlier version of the testimony. The Cape Cod Times reports:

The U.S. Department of the Interior on Tuesday took no position during a congressional hearing on legislation that would secure the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe’s reservation lands despite indications earlier in the day that the agency was prepared to back the effort.

Darryl LaCounte, acting director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, testified before the House Subcommittee on Indian, Insular and Alaska Native Affairs that the department is not prepared to take a position on the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe Reaffirmation Act, but said he will “encourage” speeding up his department’s review of the status of the tribe’s land.

What happened on Tuesday morning to change the Department of the Interior’s disposition on the bill?

Sources tell RedState.com that high-ranking officials within the Trump administration were furious when they discovered that a career employee at BIA took it upon himself to endorse legislation clearly designed to mitigate the narrative surrounding Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s unsubstantiated, likely apocryphal, claims of Native American ancestry.

Those officials forced the Mr. LaCounte to change his testimony. That would explain his glum expression at the hearing.

Indeed, we understand RedState.com’s coverage of this issue played no small part in revealing the shenanigans behind this bill.

The BIA is not nearly as pernicious an agent of the deep state as, say, the FBI. But this is a good lesson that the ruling class at all levels is prepared to undermine this president whenever the opportunity presents itself.

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