One critic warned that "this decision imperils the health of our children and the safety of drinking water supplies across much of the nation."

The Trump administration alarmed environmental and public health advocates on Friday with the Environmental Protection Agency's decision to reauthorize the use of atrazine, an herbicide common in the United States but banned or being phased out in dozens of countries due to concerns about risks such as birth defects and cancer.

"Use of this extremely dangerous pesticide should be banned, not expanded," declared Nathan Donley, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). "This disgusting decision directly endangers the health of millions of Americans."

"This decision imperils the health of our children and the safety of drinking water supplies across much of the nation," Donley added. "No one will be left untouched by the bad decision the EPA just made."

A little known fact is that atrazine is one of the many dangerous pesticides allowed on national wildlife refuges — places that are supposed to protect endangered wildlife and plants. It's also the most commonly detected pesticide in tap water. https://t.co/kH9pZsfMuM

— Center for Bio Div (@CenterForBioDiv) September 15, 2020

Despite the red flags surrounding Flynn, his role within the Trump team only continued to grow. President Obama warned Trump about hiring Flynn as National Security Advisor in November 2016, and Flynn himself disclosed to the Trump transition team that he was under federal investigation due to his previous work lobbying for Turkish interests in January 2017. Nonetheless, he was soon sworn in as a national security adviser in late January 2017. During his short tenure, he worked to push a “Middle East Marshall Plan” to build civilian nuclear power plants with Russia throughout the Middle East, which would have “required lifting sanctions on Russia.”

Four days after Trump’s inauguration, the FBI interviewed Flynn about his calls with Kislyak. After hearing a readout of Flynn’s interview with the F.B.I., then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates and another senior D.O.J. official warned White House counsel Don McGahn in January 2017 that Flynn’s denial of discussions of sanctions with Kislyak may have been misleading, and that Flynn’s comments made him “vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

Yesterday, the Treasury Department officially labeled Andriy Derkach “an active Russian agent for over a decade, maintaining close connections with the Russian Intelligence Services.” The only person who even claims to find this remotely surprising is Rudy Giuliani, who has been working hand in glove with Derkach for months.

Mr. Giuliani said in an interview Thursday night that he “felt comfortable” meeting with Mr. Derkach “because there were no sanctions against him” at the time. While he acknowledged that he “didn’t do much investigation” of Mr. Derkach, Mr. Giuliani said: “I have no reason to believe he is a Russian agent. There is nothing I saw that said he was a Russian agent. There is nothing he gave me that seemed to come from Russia at all.” But he added, “How the hell would I know?”

Giuliani’s reason for not suspecting Derkach as a Russian agent is that he didn’t tell him he was a Russian agent. I am not an espionage expert, but I have watched enough spy shows to know that one of the basic practices of foreign agents is not to announce that they are foreign agents. If you have ever watched The Americans, you will notice that Phillip and Elizabeth Jennings do not go around wearing furry Russian hats and handing out KGB business cards. It’s basic tradecraft.

Now, the fact that Derkach was advancing Russian interests was hardly a secret. He had previously belonged to the Party of Regions. That’s the pro-Russian Ukrainian party that had been financed by Russia, and whose campaign had been managed by Paul Manafort in 2010. If Giuliani had any suspicions in his mind, he could have done a Google search and turned up