Criminal probe sought over huge Benson development's approval

A House committee chaired by Rep. Raúl Grijalva wants the Justice Department to investigate “potentially criminal conduct” by the Trump administration over a proposed master-planned community near Benson.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Attorney General Merrick Garland, the House Committee on Natural Resources cites what it calls strong evidence of an illegal “quid pro quo” between senior administration officials and the developer of the 28,000-home Villages at Vigneto.

For years, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Arizona argued that the project should undergo a full-scale analysis of its environmental impacts, including those on protected species and the imperiled San Pedro River.

But in 2017, the agency abruptly changed its position, effectively clearing the way for the Army Corps of Engineers to issue a Clean Water Act permit that would allow the housing development to go forward.

Steve Spangle, a former field supervisor of the wildlife service’s Arizona office, later told the Arizona Daily Star that he “got rolled” into reversing the agency’s stance on Vigneto by top Interior Department officials who seemed more interested in politics than sound policy.

Spangle said it was the first time in his almost-30-year career that he experienced such political pressure or had anyone above the level of regional director intervene in one of his field-level decisions.

His interview with the Star prompted the Natural Resources Committee to launch an investigation in 2019.

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Wednesday marked the first time the committee has sent a criminal referral to the Justice Department.

According to its letter to Garland, the committee has documented private meetings and personal communications between Vigneto developer Michael Ingram and top administration officials, including Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Deputy Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and their staff members.

In August 2017, Ingram and Bernhardt got together in Montana for a breakfast meeting that was not disclosed on public calendars or in documents provided to the committee.

A short time later, Bernhardt apparently directed an Interior Department attorney to tell Spangle to reverse the wildlife service’s stance on Vigneto.

Internal documents cited by the committee show career Interior staff members “struggled to justify the about-face” before making it official in October 2017.

That same month, Ingram and several other Arizona residents linked to him by the committee made what the letter describes as “highly unusual out-of-cycle donations” totaling $241,600 to the Trump Victory Fund and the Republican National Committee.

Ingram, who is chairman of the Scottsdale-based development company El Dorado Holdings, Inc., seemed to have advance knowledge of some Interior decisions related to the development before they were announced, according to the letter.

“Together, these facts raise serious concerns about a potentially criminal quid pro quo,” the letter states.

The 37-page referral to the Justice Department was signed by Grijalva and fellow Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, chairwoman of the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Politics at play?

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Reached by phone Wednesday, El Dorado attorney and advisor Lanny Davis said he had been “sandbagged” by the committee’s letter, which he characterized as a political attack that has little to do with the truth.

“El Dorado participated in multiple meetings with this committee, acted in full transparency and gave full cooperation without a subpoena. Despite this, we were denied the basic and fundamental opportunity to rebut the allegations in this referral and denied a chance to even speak to the Chairman,” Davis said in a written statement. “The referral sent by Chairman Grijalva and Subcommittee Chairwoman Porter is false, misleading, unfair and strikes me as reminiscent of McCarthyism’s use of innuendo as a surrogate for fact.”

News reports by the Star’s longtime environmental reporter Tony Davis are cited several times in the committee’s letter.

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“The findings of this investigation show us yet again that the previous administration cast career staff expertise aside while they handed out federal agency decisions to Trump’s buddies and big donors on a pay-to-play basis,” said Grijalva in a written statement Wednesday. “It seems Vigneto’s developer figured backroom deals with top Trump officials would be a more fruitful avenue for getting his way. It’s a shame he wasn’t wrong.”

Porter, D-California, said the evidence uncovered by the committee “demands additional fact finding, at a minimum.”

“An exchange of money for a specific government action is the clearest form of corruption there is, and Americans — Democrats, Republicans and independents — share an understanding that this kind of quid pro quo erodes our democracy,” Porter said in a written statement.

The results of the committee’s investigation drew swift reactions from environmental groups opposed to the Vigneto project.

“These are extremely serious allegations against one of the highest officials in the Trump administration,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director for The Center for Western Priorities. “The Department of Justice must quickly follow up on this evidence and conduct a full investigation, including interviews with the political appointees and career attorneys who carried out Bernhardt’s orders.”

Permit on hold

Interior officials have previously denied pressuring Spangle, although they did acknowledge in court documents that Bernhardt participated in discussions surrounding Vigneto.

The plans for the development include homes, a golf course, a resort and retail and commercial space on 12,324 acres along both sides of Arizona highway 90, two miles south of Interstate 10 west of Benson.

El Dorado has promoted it as a self-sufficient community, with schools, shops, restaurants and other amenities.

Environmentalists have fought the project — and sued to block a federal permit for it — out of concern that diversions and groundwater pumping for the development will dry up parts of the San Pedro, including the nearby St. David Cienega.

Last summer, the fish and wildlife service walked back its Trump era position on Vigneto, prompting the Corps of Engineers to suspend the Clean Water Act permit it issued for the development in 2018.

In a June 28 letter to the Corps, Jeff Humphrey, field supervisor with the wildlife service’s Arizona Ecological Services office in Phoenix, said their latest change of heart came after an internal review of the agency’s sudden, developer-friendly turn in October 2017 “and the process by which that decision was made.”

Grijalva thinks that process warrants prosecutions.

“I strongly urge the Justice Department to take up this investigation and make sure the right people are held accountable for what they’ve done and how they’ve betrayed the trust of the American people,” he said.