Inside the Steve Bannon-Linked 'Psy-Op' That a Texas Butterfly Preserve Director Says Shut Down Her Border Refuge (Feat. Marianna Treviño Wright)

The leader of a Texas butterfly preserve vividly remembers the day in July 2017, when she saw five workmen around the levee of her refuge, three of them wielding chainsaws, cutting down trees and mowing down vegetation. "It was a shocking moment," recalled Marianna Treviño Wright, the executive director of the now-closed National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. "I said, 'Who are you, and what are you doing here? And they said, 'Well, the government sent us to clear this land for a border wall.'" Little did she know at the time, Treviño Wright said, that her fight against the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall would plunge her into a years-long battle with prominent figures in MAGA-world, including ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and possibly, former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Nor did she know, she says, that her well-publicized court battles against those powerful forces that be would make her the target of QAnon-style conspiracy theories that would shut down her preserve and make her fear for her life. In an extended interview with Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Treviño Wright describes how her 100-acre haven for nature lovers and lepidopterists leapt into national headlines — and became a lightning rod for right-wing conspiracy theories with a history of provoking violence. After years of this campaign, she says, an alarming incident involving a fringe congressional candidate in Virginia shut down her refuge indefinitely weeks ago. Its doors remain closed as of publication. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.