The founder of outdoor retailer Patagonia — which is suing over the reduction of Bears Ears National Monument — declined to appear at a Tuesday hearing about the smaller monuments replacing it.
In an earlier round on Twitter, the committee had accused the company of lying. An Obama administration official — in a tweet — then criticized using a government social media account to disparage a private business. And in response, a staff member for the committee’s Republican majority tweeted that the official is a “disgruntled partisan hack.”
To Dan Levin, a University of Utah associate professor of political science, the Twitter exchanges are “just another iteration of how ugly American politics have become, that nobody seems to be able to discuss the issues without allegations of bad faith.