Whatever happened to Jim Beers?
by JIM BEERS
My answer follows.
Dear XXX,
I can’t find anything that answers your question exactly so here is what happened.
For about a year before Clinton was elected, I was given the “extra” duty (that eventually took almost half of all my time) of representing the state fish and wildlife agencies and the US fur market in international negotiations with the European Union regarding a threatened EU fur ban. I was a member of both US State Department and US Trade Representatives delegations to the EU regarding their implementing an EU regulation banning the importation (into the EU) of any furs from countries that did not ban the leghold trap. I made numerous trips to Brussells and London.
Under our Constitution, only the federal government can negotiate with a foreign power. In the US, trapping and furbearer management are solely under the Constitutional authority of state governments. Since I was the main guy in USFWS involved with P-R funding, I was asked to represent their interests on these delegations.
The US is the #1 exporter of furs followed by Canada #2 and Russia #3: Europe was the largest importer of furs in the world. I worked with some fine guys from those 2 places but I was the sole advocate for the fur market and furbearer management and US state authority on the 2 US delegations. Mostly the members of the US delegations were indifferent to or hostile to furs.
When Clinton got elected, our first-ever lady Director at USFWS soon died in office. She was succeeded by Jamie Clark. Soon thereafter Dan Ashe lost his job in the US House of Representatives and popped up right away as a USFWS bigwig in charge of the P-R/D-J funds. Neither of those 2 supported our fight with the EU politicians and bureaucrats (both of whom had been bribed by US and international enviro/animal rights groups to ban fur imports) over furs. For the first 3 years, they (Ashe and Clark) tried to maintain a public persona that they were supportive of hunting, fishing, trapping, and state governments. Note this coincides with the period when wolves were introduced and the P-R/D-J funds were stolen.
During this period I was receiving calls at home that Ashe and Clark were having secret meetings with HSUS/DOW/TNC/NRDC et al in the Directors Office and loud swearing around my name was heard on several occasions. One old friend stopped in my office one day and closed the door and told me “to be very careful” because in a recent meeting with the Director and these folks my name came up and that they “really hate you and they are truly evil people”.
Evidently, Clark and Ashe were assuring these radicals not to worry about my EU efforts because they were bound to fail. In 1998 we were successful. The EU backed down and Clark and Ashe and their cronies went ballistic. Ashe even secretly tried to get the President to ban all leghold traps on all federal lands with an Executive Order to assuage the whining anti’s, to no avail.
They no longer felt they had to keep their (we love management) disguise. Instead of congratulations, I was told I would be transferred to Boston to an unspecified job at an unspecified grade. Now that is illegal. I had good job reviews and my job still existed and there were a hundred jobs in Washington I could “bump” if my job were eliminated. I dug in my heels and refused to sign anything.
They threatened me at work. They dropped a brown envelope anonymously at my front door on a Sunday morning while I was at my part-time security job (putting 3 kids through college) that threatened to deny my retirement pension for 5 years and my federal health care forever if I did not sign the enclosed retirement papers by Tuesday. I was also told I could not enter my office without permission and an escort. My wife was very upset. By now I had a lawyer and he told me to stay home but not to worry because this was just one more very illegal thing they had done.
That Monday there were armed police in the building and at the entrance to the parking garage checking ID’s and asking if they had seen me. Note: I found out later they had been told I was being fired and was considered “dangerous”. At the time I had gun permits in VA, DC, and MD. Think of what could have happened.
On Tuesday my lawyer said they admitted it was all a mistake and that I could go back to my job. I was to call a particular Solicitor in the Department (a guy noted for his lack of skill or ambition) before I returned.
When I called his office I was put on hold for 20 minutes. When he came on he was all cheery and asked me how things were going and if there were any “hard feelings”? I thought, what’s with all this buddy/buddy stuff and if I have “hard feelings”? I told him I was calling “to go back to work and as to any “hard feelings” you send armed police after me that COULD HAVE RESULTED IN MY GETTING SHOT, every one of my coworkers is wondering if I beat my wife or stick up 7-11’s, and you scared the hell out of my wife with that pension and healthcare threat… and you ask if there are any hard feelings?” There was a long, long pause and then he uttered the immortal words, “well Mr. Beers you just stay home and go fishing until we get back to you”. My lawyer was at first dumbfounded, then amused, and then confident of winning.
I was at home for 10 months on full pay and benefits (even accruing leave) until I was offered a cash settlement in return for retiring and keeping silent for 3 years.
The last month at work, people had jumped off elevators I was on and one guy even ran back UP a DOWN escalator to avoid being seen with or near me. Today FWS people shun me. Recently at a funeral for one, no one would sit near or with me at the luncheon afterwards.
It was when the 10 months stuff started and the House Resources Committee asked me up to explain what was happening to me AND WHY that the P-R scandal expose started. During this session with the Committee I mentioned the lack of any increase in P-R funds while (just like after Obama’s election) there was a big surge in gun and ammunition purchases. When we talked more about that, the Committee requested the P-R budget expenditure documents from USFWS. USFWS laughingly sent up ALL their budget stuff for 2 years telling the committee they couldn’t separate the P-R stuff out (a lie) and telling each other “they’ll, I.e. the Committee, never be able to make heads or tails of this”. Big mistake.
The rest, as they say, is history and that is a thumbnail of Whatever Happened to Jim Beers.
Jim Beers
3 March 2012
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This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
be found at http://jimbeers7.blogster.com (Jim Beers Uncommon Sense)
Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net