President Donald Trump this week raised the possibility that midterm election results could affect how quickly U.S. Marine Corps veterans and their families receive payments from the federal government for illnesses tied to decades of water contamination at Camp Lejeune.
While speaking at a rally in Greenville this week, Trump said that if his Republican party keeps control of Congress, he would direct the U.S. Department of Justice to settle any remaining "legitimate" claims as quickly as possible. But Trump also issued a warning.
"If we don't win, there's no money. If we do win, you’re getting it. It’s going to be finally over with, that nightmare that’s been going on for so many years," Trump said.
Advocates for veterans and their family members who have fallen ill due to decades of water contamination on the Onslow County base said that Trump's remarks represent the politicization of caring for veterans and their families.
Jerry Ensminger is a retired U.S. Marine Corps master sergeant whose daughter, Janey, died of childhood leukemia after being conceived and born on Camp Lejeune. Ensminger, who now lives in Bladen County, is one of the most prominent advocates for victims of the contamination.
"Our military members who were poisoned and our families, this has no place for partisan politics. The military has no place for partisan politics," Ensminger said in an interview this week.
When a member of the U.S. Armed Forces enlists or re-enlists, Ensminger noted, they swear an oath to the U.S. Constitution, not to one political party.
And the Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act of 2022 passed Congress with bipartisan support in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate.
That legislation included the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, which let individuals bring claims against the federal government for illnesses linked to the contamination.
The U.S. Department of Navy is offering settlements woth between $100,000 and $550,000 depending on the disease with which a victim has been diagnosed; how long they lived or served on the base; and if they are living.
There have been about 408,500 claims filed under the Camp Lejeune Justice Act, with Trump announcing Tuesday that more than $1 billion in settlements have been paid. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for how many claims have been settled and how many are outstanding.
Mike Partain, a Lejeune victims advocate who co-founded the group The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten with Ensminger, said his understanding is that the total number of claims that have been paid out are less than 1% of those filed.
If a victim of the contamination is set to receive a reward from the federal government either by winning a trial or reaching a settlement, it is paid out of the U.S. Treasury's Judgment Fund.
That's a permanent, indefinite fund created by Congress in 1956 to pay judgments or settlements for which lawmakers have not designated specific appropriations.
In other words, a Congress that sat 70 years ago ensured that money would, in fact, be available in cases like those associated with Camp Lejeune.
Politicians react — or not
Generally, Democratic politicians have criticized Trump's remarks while Republicans have not engaged with them.
Both Greenville and Camp Lejeune are in North Carolina's 3rd Congressional District, for instance, represented by Congressman Greg Murphy, a Republican.
Murphy did not reply to a request for comment about Trump's remarks. Notably, Murphy last year introduced legislation that would formally cap the fees attorneys could charge for representing Camp Lejeune victims.
The legislation would also allow Lejeune cases to be heard in any federal court in North or South Carolina, not just the Eastern District of North Carolina, aimed at helping cases come to trial more quickly. And once a case reaches trial, the legislation proposed allowing a jury trail rather than only a bench trial.
Murphy is facing Democratic candidate Raymond Smith in this year's general election.
Smith, a former state legislator and combat veteran, called Trump's remarks an attempt to "bribe" military families in order to provide Republicans a political boost.
"I think it is abhorrent for anyone, much less the president of the United States, to use military families and their suffering as political pawns. This is the lowest that I've seen in this administration," Smith said in an interview.
Spokespeople for Rep. Don Davis, D-N.C. 1, and Republican candidate Laurie Buckhout did not respond to a request for comment on the remarks. Buckhout was in attendance at Tuesday's rally.
Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley was present at Tuesday's rally. When asked Wednesday about Trump's remarks, Whatley told CBS 17, “Look, I’m not going to speak for the president. What I will say is that we need to get that settlement done, and we need to support the military families that were affected by the water situation at Camp Lejeune."
Former Gov. Roy Cooper, the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race, has been more forceful in his response to Trump's remarks.
Cooper told MSNOW, "They didn't sign up to serve based on partisanship or the outcome of an election. They signed up to defend our country, and it is shameful to extort votes, especially from service members."
Tuesday's remarks were not the first time that Trump has linked payments from the federal government with midterm outcomes. During a rally in Gastonia last month, Trump said that Whatley had been pushing for additional money to help the state recover from 2024's Hurricane Helene.
"Now, if Michael loses, I’m not sending it, OK. No, I’m only kidding," Trump said.
Camp Lejuene's history of contamination
Contamination of the groundwater that supplied Camp Lejeune's Hadnot Point drinking water system likely began as early as August 1953 and continued until 1985, according to the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. There are also periods where water from Hadnot Point supplied the base's Holcomb Boulevard water system.
Samples from Hadnot Point contained TCE hundreds of times above current standards, with water supplying barracks and family housing on the base. Other chemicals identified in the water included benzene, vinyl chloride and other volatile organic compounds.
The base's Tarawa Terrace drinking water system was also contaminated, although the primary contaminant found there was PCE. That system, which also supplied on-base family housing, contained levels of the contaminant above current EPA levels for nearly 30 years beginning in November 1957, according to ATSDR.
The Hadnot Point contamination has been traced to leaking underground storage tanks and waste disposal areas, while Tarawa Terrace's has been linked with a nearby dry cleaning facility.
The 2022 bill also allowed people who believed they were contaminated on Camp Lejeune to sue the federal government for the first time.
Arguments in the first of those cases are scheduled to begin Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina in Elizabeth City.
Ensminger, for his part, criticized the size of the settlements being offered by the federal government compared to what he and other survivors believe a judge could find the federal government's liability to be worth.
"It's peanuts. They're pennies on the dollar of what those cases would be worth in court," Ensminger said.
Not just about NC
Partain stressed in an interview that the Camp Lejeune contamination is frequently brought up in the context of North Carolina because the base is located in Onslow County but isn't a local one.
He used himself as an example.
When Partain was a young child, he and his family lived on the base and were exposed to chemicals while his father served in the Marine Corps. The family moved to Florida when he was four years old, and he has lived there since.
In 2007, he was diagnosed with male breast cancer, a condition research has linked with exposure to PCE and other chemicals found in Lejeune's drinking water.
Although government researchers found an association between exposure to the drinking water and male breast cancer, it is not one of the nine conditions currently accepted by the Veterans Administration for service personnel as being caused by Lejeune's contaminated water. That list includes several other cancers (bladder, kidney, leukemia, among others), as well as kidney disease and Parkinson's disease.
Partain is one of thousands across the country who believe their illness was caused by drinking water at Camp Lejeune and who has filed a claim against the Department of the Navy.
"In the past, the issue has been seen and perceived as a North Carolina issue. It's not. It's a national issue," Partain said in an interview.
