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Annie’s Mailbox: Between two mooching kids

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Ohio litigation raises questions about ownership of Powell Law Group

<p>While on the campaign trail this year with his controversial father, Donald Trump Jr. has resumed a familiar role.</p><p>Several years ago, a photo of the younger Trump from a then-recent hunt in Africa was circulated online and anti-hunting groups used the images to attack the sport. Rather than apologize or stay silent on the issue, Trump said he decided to speak.</p><p>&#8220;I stood up for hunting and said, &#8216;Listen, here&#8217;s how conservation works,&#8217;&#8221; Trump said during an interview with the Times Leader last week. &#8220;The negative perception people are trying to put out there about hunters, I want to dispel all of that.&#8221;</p><p>That role of defending hunting is something Trump has carried to his father&#8217;s campaign, parlaying his passion for the outdoors into a common bond with many voters across every state. Still, Trump doesn&#8217;t view himself so much as a spokesman for hunters, but rather a hunter himself.</p><p>He is quick to point out that he reloads his own ammunition, ties flies and fletches arrows for both his recurve and compound bows. Trump also emphasizes the family routine where he and his wife load up their five children and bolt from New York City on Friday afternoon and head to the woods for the weekend.</p><p>Trump said his love of outdoors is genuine, and that&#8217;s what sets him apart in a political landscape where candidates pose for the obligatory hunting photo in an effort to win votes from hunters and anglers.</p><p>&#8220;Their annual hunting shot,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a picture of them with a shotgun, the safety&#8217;s off and their finger is on the trigger and they pretend to know what they&#8217;re doing to cater to the crowd.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s very different for me. For me, it&#8217;s a lifestyle.&#8221;</p><p>While on the campaign trail, Trump has taken advantage of outdoor opportunities across several states. While most of his time is spent speaking at campaign events or meeting voters with his father, Trump always squeezes in a brief jaunt to the woods or water.</p><p>&#8220;We were in Utah and I took three hours out to go fish the Provo (River) for a little while. I&#8217;m looking at May and turkey season kicking in so I can get away and do that,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s incredibly important if I can get even a half-day in the woods. That&#8217;s how I decompress.&#8221;</p><p>While a quick break into the outdoors means a lot to Trump, he said he understands that being a voice for hunters and lending them an ear while on the campaign trail is equally important. As the presidential campaign has wound through the midwest, northeast and southern states, Trump has heard a myriad of concerns from hunters. Those issues, he said, include access to public land, regulations that impede the Second Amendment, the impact of predators on deer and elk herds out west and attacks on hunting in general from anti-hunting groups.</p><p>Trump can relate to those concerns, he said, because as a hunter he deals with them like everyone else. He calls all the attacks on the sport &#8220;death by a thousand cuts.&#8221;</p><p>Trump cites the importance of access to public lands as one example that, if restricted, can harm hunting. It&#8217;s why he would prefer that public access to federal lands isn&#8217;t compromised by handing them over to the states.</p><p>By doing so, Trump said, some states could choose to sell the land to replenish deficiencies in their budgets. With the land and access lost, hunters would have to drive further just to find a place to hunt and may decide just to give up the sport.</p><p>&#8220;That wouldn&#8217;t happen under my watch,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;Whether it be me involved or me being the very, very loud and annoying voice in my father&#8217;s ear saying &#8216;this is what we have to be doing on these issues.&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>Still, Trump is a proponent of protecting federal funding sources &#8212; such as the Pittman-Robertson Act &#8212; that provide revenue to state wildlife agencies, and he&#8217;s also aware of the challenges of having a budget based primarily on the sale of hunting and fishing licenses.</p><p>&#8220;Our joke at the Christmas table this year is the only job I&#8217;d be interested in doing in government is the Department of Interior because I get these issues,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;I know it&#8217;s important to make sure there are hunters in charge of the state (wildlife agencies) because they&#8217;re the ones that are leading conservation. I would make sure hunters are involved.&#8221;</p><p>Trump said that while his father doesn&#8217;t hunt, that doesn&#8217;t mean he isn&#8217;t keenly aware of the issue concerning hunters and anglers. Trump said there&#8217;s a misconception that because his father is a businessman from New York City he isn&#8217;t in touch with outdoor issues.</p><p>He said his father&#8217;s support of the Second Amendment is one example of how in-tune he is with the concerns of hunters.</p><p>&#8220;He&#8217;s the only guy in the wake of the San Bernardino and Paris attacks where, the next day all these other guys who are supposedly pro-Second Amendment on paper, they&#8217;re crickets,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;He was the one saying, &#8216;Hey, if bullets were going the other way, maybe it would be a different story.&#8217; As a New Yorker, I don&#8217;t think my father ever got enough credit for being passionate about these issues. He&#8217;s been very vocal about it and it&#8217;s great to see.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Donald Trump Jr., right, with his father, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks at a campaign rally on Jan. 21 in Las Vegas. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TrumpSrandJr.jpg</photo0><caption0>Donald Trump Jr., right, with his father, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks at a campaign rally on Jan. 21 in Las Vegas. </caption0><photoCredit0>Isaac Brekken | AP </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><subheadMeta>Trump Jr. raises outdoors issues</subheadMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p><strong>Editor&#8217;s note: Times Leader sportswriter Tom Venesky recently reached out to Donald Trump Jr., an avid hunter, for an outdoors story. During the interview, the topic of the latter&#8217;s father&#8217;s presidential campaign came up. We&#8217;ve chosen to publish that portion of their conversation separately from our normal sports and outdoors coverage.</strong></p><p>By Tom Venesky</p><p>tvenesky@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Tom Venesky at 570-991-6395 or on Twitter @TLTomVenesky.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Trump Jr. says he’s bringing outdoor politics to the campaign trail