Emails Show Iraq War PR Alums Led Attempt to Discredit Dakota Access Protesters

picture-7018-1583982147.png
on

By Steve Horn and Curtis Waltman,ย MuckRock

Behind the scenes, asย law enforcement officials tried to stem protests against the Dakota Access pipeline, alumni from the George W. Bush White House were leadingย a crisis communications effort to discredit pipeline protesters.

Emails show that the firms Delve and Off the Record Strategies,ย apparently working on contract with the National Sheriffsโ€™ Association, worked in secret onย talking points, media outreach, and communications training for law enforcement dealing withย Dakota Access opponents mobilized at the Standing Rock Siouxย Reservation in Cannon Ball, North Dakota.ย This revelation comes fromย documents obtained via an open records requestย from the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department in Wyoming.

As previously reported by DeSmog, the GOP-connectedย firm DCI Group led the forward-facing public relations efforts for Dakota Access via a front group called Midwest Alliance for Infrastructure Nowย (MAIN). Today MAINย has morphed intoย aย national effort known asย Grow Americaโ€™s Infrastructure Now (GAIN).

Delveย isย an opposition research firm run byย Jeff Berkowitz, former Republican National Committee research director andย official in the George W. Bush White House. His company led research efforts on behalf of the National Sheriffs’ย Association.

Off the Record Strategies, meanwhile, guided the sheriffsโ€™ย behind-the-scenes communications strategy.ย Mark Pfeifleย runs the secretive firm, Off the Record Strategies, and served as communications advisor in the Georgeย W. Bush administration, leadingย PR efforts for the wars in Iraq andย Afghanistan.

The National Sheriffsโ€™ Association, a trade group for sheriffs,ย has been lobbying the federal government for additional surplus military gear from the Department of Defense under the auspices of its 1033 program. The association was also the central organizing vehicleย which broughtย hundreds of out-of-state cops to Standing Rock via the Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC).

Law enforcement present at Standing Rock underย EMACย came under fire for a heavy-handed and overtly military-like response to pipelineย protesters.ย 

‘Guns, Knives,ย Etc.’

According to an October 4, 2016 email sent by Chelsea Rider, content strategist for the sheriffsโ€™ association, Pfeifleย drafted the talking points used by law enforcement in an attempt to discredit the anti-Dakota Access movement. Representatives of thatย movementย referred to themselves asย โ€œwater protectorsโ€ because they opposed the pipeline crossing Lake Oahe and the Missouri River, a source of drinking waterย for the Standing Rock Sioux and othersย downriver.

The document attached to that email, according to its metadata, indicates it was indeedย written by Pfeifle, and then givenย to the acting public information officer, Donnell Hushka of the North Dakota Association of Counties, who handled information related toย the protests at Standing Rock.

The talking points purported that the movement was led by โ€œout-of-state agitatorsโ€ with gang and drug-dealing ties, had connections to โ€œanarchistsโ€ and โ€œPalestinian activists,โ€ usedย violence,ย and possessedย โ€œguns, knives, etc.โ€ In addition, the messagingย included calls to โ€œfollow the moneyโ€ in pursuit of potential funding support from liberal elites such as George Soros and Tomย Steyer.


Credit: Laramie County Sheriffs’ย Department

On October 5, Pfeifle sent a follow-up email to Hushka and other sheriffsโ€™ association staff, including its executive director Jonathan Thompson, in response to an email sent by Thompson. Thompsonโ€™s email recommended changes forย a press conference script drafted byย Hushka.

โ€œImportantly, we need to make sure we are pushing the primary message before the actual press conference begins, we want questions asked about who is [sic]ย protesters,โ€ wrote Thompson in his email. โ€œMust focus on the why this happening. This not for altruistic reasons, but nothing less than a desire to โ€˜occupy, threaten and intimidate,โ€™ not peaceful protest. There those that want nothing more than using thug-like tactics, rumors and outrightย lights to distort what is reallyย happening.โ€

Pfeifle agreed in his email, and suggestedย following the press conference with outreach to friendly media outlets to amplify theย message.


Credit: Laramie County Sheriffs’ย Department

One of those outlets was the Say Anything Blog, run by Rob Port, who the next day,ย October 6, ran a blog post featuring many of the themes found in the talking points: โ€œOver 85 Percent of Arrested #NoDAPL Protesters Are From Outside of North Dakota.โ€

In his email, Pfeifle had suggested reaching out to Port, who also hosts a radio show on WDAY AM-970 and regularly wrote blog posts in support of Dakota Access during the Standing Rock stand-off. When Port’s piece wentย online, Pfeifle wrote an email that same day to the Delve team, sheriffs’ association staff, Hushka, and others askingย an association staffer to share the piece on socialย media.


Credit: Laramie County Sheriffs’ย Department

Though since removed from his blog, the Web Archive shows that Port formerly served as a policy fellow for the North Dakota Policy Council, a defunct think-tank that was part of the conservative and corporate-funded State Policy Network (SPN). SPN, as reported in 2013 by DeSmog, was actually created as a message-force-multiplier by and for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), another conservative and corporate-backed group which producesย model legislation that isย disseminated to predominantly Republicanย state legislatorsย nationwide.

Scott Hennen, another conservative radio show host Pfeifle suggestedย the sheriffs’ association target for outreach, actually copied and pasted the association’s memo into a Facebook post, which was then shared by the association. In prefacing the talking points, Hennen also posted a photo of a Palestinian flag which was on the protest siteย depicted.

โ€œFor those who still believe the #NoDAPL protests are all peaceful and prayerfulโ€ฆread this,โ€ readย Hennen’s Facebook post. โ€œIt will help you awaken to smell the coffee. And note the Palestine flag in theย photo.โ€

Onย October 7, Hennen also invited Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier onย his show to disseminate a similar set of talking points as those conveyed in Hennen’s Facebookย post.

Iraq War ‘Damageย Control’

Pfeifle, who headsย Off the Record Strategies, specializesย in โ€œdamage control,โ€ according to a 2005 Baltimore Sun story profiling the Bush White House communications strategy to fend off domestic critics of the Iraqย War.

โ€œPfeifle’s specialty is damage control. And at the moment, there is more than enough damage surrounding Bush,โ€ The Sun wrote of the campaign Pfeifle co-ran with the host of MSNBCโ€™s โ€œDeadline: White House,โ€ Nicolle Wallace, who then was a top communications advisor to President Bush. โ€œWith public alarm about the war mounting and public trust of Bush plummeting, the White House has gone on the defensive with a public relations push designed to discredit his opponents. The operation has all the trappings of a political campaign โ€” including rapid-response statements targeted at opponents, using carefully compiledย research.โ€

Pfeifle isnโ€™t the only person with ties to the Iraq Warย who did public relations for Dakota Access. James โ€œSpiderโ€ Marksย led intelligence-gathering for the 2003 โ€œshock and aweโ€ campaign for Operation Iraqi Liberation. Today, heย serves as a consultant to Energy Transfer Partners and sits on the advisory board of TigerSwan, the companyโ€™s private security firm and a funder of the National Sheriffsโ€™ Association.

With a tagline of โ€œPrivate Council/Public Results,โ€ Off the Record Strategies does all of its business behind the scenes and rarely issues publicย comments.

โ€œIf we told you exactly what we do, weโ€™d have to go on the record,โ€ reads its website.๏ปฟ โ€œWeโ€™re strategic counselors with decades of high-level experience and a no-holds-barred approach to meeting โ€” and exceeding โ€” our clientโ€™s needs through personal and confidentialย service.โ€

Off the Record Strategiesย ‘Here toย Help’

In a May 7 webinar convened by the sheriffsโ€™ association, Sheriff Laney and Pfeifleย pointed to the October 2016 press conference as an instance of going on the offensive and turning the tables on the โ€œNorth Dakota niceโ€ attitude.ย Their webinar was titled โ€œProtest on the Prairie: Law Enforcement Response and Lessons Learned.โ€

Laneyย appears to be a prominent figure within theย National Sheriffsโ€™ Association. Heย sits on its Board of Directors, formerly servedย on its Special Operations Committee, and wonย association awards in 2017ย andย 2012. Within his more than hour-long webinar speech last May, Laney also gave a 17-point โ€œDAPL Lessons Learnedโ€ย presentation.

On top of his other affiliations, Sheriff Laney is a member ofย the Board of Directors for the North Dakota Association of Counties, which received the talking points from Off the Record Strategies and the sheriffsโ€™ association in the October 4ย email.

On October 10 last year, Morton County, North Dakota โ€”ย center of the pipeline protestsย โ€”ย sent out aย request under EMACย for 40 additional law enforcement officers to come to Standing Rock. Laney, and not Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier, is listed as the point of contactย on that request. An October 13 article in the Billings Gazette, taking note of how little time Laney had been spending at home in Cass County, refers to Laney as the Dakota Access โ€œoperations chiefโ€ in Mortonย County.

The National Sheriffsโ€™ Association and Off the Record Strategies also show notable ties amongย personnel.

Patrick Royal, a media strategist who was director of media affairs for the Republican National Committee in the 2008 election, is actually listed as an employee by both the sheriffsโ€™ association and Off the Record Strategies. Further,ย Jonathan Thompson, executive director of the National Sheriffsโ€™ Association, formerly worked in the Bush White House with Pfeifle. They both went on to work together at a public relations firm named S4 Inc.ย P. Edward Leffler โ€” listed on his LinkedIn page as the director of presidential transition project for the sheriffsโ€™ association โ€” also lists himself as a communication and media relations specialist for Off the Recordย Strategies.

Royal, Thompson, and Pfeifle also worked together on a crisis communications reaction to the popular Netflix documentary series, Making a Murderer. According to an email obtained by USA Today, Manitowoc County Sheriff Rob Hermann consulted with the three of them on best practice response ideas to the hit 10-part series. Neitherย Royal, Thompson, nor Pfeifleย responded to multiple requests forย comment.

In an interview with Royal in May about the sheriffsโ€™ associationโ€™s coordination of the Standing Rock law enforcement response, Royal responded, โ€œI wouldnโ€™t quite characterize it that way [and] I would say that what we tried to do was work with the local sheriffs to coordinate for them, to get people who would make themselvesย available.โ€

According to the sheriffs’ association website, Royal was invited to speak alongside Pfeifle at the association’s recentย annual meeting held in Reno, Nevada, where they were slated to give two three-hour seminars titled, โ€œCommunicating in a Crisis.โ€ Eventually, the agenda changed and it appears the two did not end up speaking at the meeting, replaced instead by Sheriff Kirchmeier, Sheriff Laney, and a representative from TigerSwan in a seminar bearing the same title as the May one given by Laneyย andย Pfeifle.

In his May 7 webinar presentation, Pfeifle told those listening to consider his firm a โ€œresourceโ€ to be tappedย if necessary during prospective future pipelineย battles.


Credit: National Sheriffs’ย Association

โ€œConsider us a resource of the National Sheriffโ€™s Association. This is not the end of our activities to help and support law enforcement in areas where the pipelines could be under protest attack in the next days, months and years. But itโ€™s a continuing activity that we will be available to support you in ways necessary and learn what we learned in North Dakota for areas that might be seeing protesters coming in doing much the same thing across the country,โ€ said Pfeifle. โ€œSo, use us as aย resource. Weโ€™re here toย help.โ€

Pfeifle, in fact, has remained a resource for other pipeline fights, includingย the long-contested Keystone XL. According to Laneyโ€™s May 7 webinar presentation, he, Pfeifle, and Thompson all traveled to Lincoln, Nebraska, on April 14 to meet with the stateโ€™s Attorney General, Doug Peterson. Keystone XL, if constructed, would pass through the Cornhuskerย State.

Researchย โ€œDelveโ€

In the October 4 talking points email, several Delve employees were also included in the email chain, though it is unclear how or if they responded. The email only arose through the records request because it was forwarded to Laramie County Sheriff Danny Glick, who did not respond to a request for comment for this story.ย ย 

Delve principals in the email included Matt Moon, Jeff Berkowitz, Foster Morss, Lloyd Miller, and Dan Mintz. Moon is the former deputy research director for the Republican National Committee (RNC), where he worked with Berkowitz. Morss led the research and policy team for 2016 Republican Party presidential candidate, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, andย formerly served as deputy research director for the RNC under Berkowitz. Berkowitz and Morss also worked together on Rudy Giulianiโ€™s run for president during the 2008 electionย cycle.


Credit: Laramie County Sheriffs’ย Department

Miller worked as a research consultant for the GOP Super-PAC American Crossroads, founded by former President George W. Bush’s chief of staff Karl Rove, while Mintz has since transitioned into a new job and works as the speechwriter for U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). The Daily Beast reported that Berkowitz also ghostwrote some of the campaign policy positions forย Donald Trumpโ€™s 2016 run for the White House, doing so through another firm he runs named JBC Research LLC.

โ€œDelve provides breakthrough insights for winning causes through competitive intelligence, opposition research, media and subject monitoring, policy analysis, and issue management,โ€ Delve says on its website. โ€œOur clients include fortune-listed corporations, major industry associations, Republican political campaigns, independent expenditure groups, and advocacy and educationalย groups.โ€

For Delveโ€™s work on Dakota Access โ€” which is owned by Energy Transfer Partners founder and CEO Kelcy Warren, a major Republican Party donor โ€” the firm maintained a special email address, โ€œ[email protected].โ€ Representatives from Delve did not respond to a request for comment for thisย story.

Delveโ€™s โ€œdelveโ€ into helping the National Sheriffsโ€™ Association at Standing Rock appears to have paid off, though, at least according to Sheriff Laneyโ€™s May webinarย presentation.

โ€œIt wasnโ€™t until we had Mark and his people, Matt and Dan [of Delve] and Chelsea [of the National Sheriffsโ€™ Association], [who] all came [and] spent probably way more time than they thought they ever would in their lives in North Dakota, but they spent months with us,โ€ saidย Laney.

โ€œAnd they were a godsend for us because we were finally about to fight them. You know, their professional media service we know was coming out of Seattle and it was highly funded. And to combat that with our own experts and I donโ€™t have the time to go into all of that, but I can tell you without them, we wouldโ€™ve been in seriousย trouble.โ€

Dakota Access, pending an ongoing federal court review of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineersโ€™ environmental review process for the pipelineโ€™s Missouri River crossing and potential spill impacts on the Standing Rock Tribe, is now open for business. Obtained from hydraulic fracturing (โ€œfrackingโ€) from the Bakken Shale basin, the oil contained within Dakota Access is now moving at a rate of half of North Dakota’s entireย production supply chain to market.
ย 

Main image credit: Robย Wilson

picture-7018-1583982147.png
Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

Related Posts

on

Campaigners say the European Commission has โ€œcompletely embarrassed itselfโ€ by offering โ€œflimsy excusesโ€ for taking oil and gas lobbyists to the flagship summit.

Campaigners say the European Commission has โ€œcompletely embarrassed itselfโ€ by offering โ€œflimsy excusesโ€ for taking oil and gas lobbyists to the flagship summit.
on

The new leader of the opposition has regularly criticised the UKโ€™s green ambitions.

The new leader of the opposition has regularly criticised the UKโ€™s green ambitions.
on

Lucy von Sturmer and Duncan Meisel are building communities of creatives dedicated to preventing the advertising and public relations industry from casting polluters as climate saviours.

Lucy von Sturmer and Duncan Meisel are building communities of creatives dedicated to preventing the advertising and public relations industry from casting polluters as climate saviours.
Opinion
on

It's time to come together to collectively work through the anxiety, grief and overwhelm so many of us are experiencing.

It's time to come together to collectively work through the anxiety, grief and overwhelm so many of us are experiencing.