Scott Pruitt Is An Ethics Nightmare, But So Is Ryan Zinke

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By David Halperin, crossposted from Republicย Report

A Westerner appointed to President Trumpโ€™s cabinet,ย heโ€™s drawn attention for his penchant for expensive travel, vanity perquisites of office, abuse of agency staff time, and cozy personal financial deals with business executives whose industries he oversees. Meanwhile, he has denied the dangers of climate change, met extensively with corporate lobbyists, and gutted the environmental protections implemented by priorย administrations.

Yes, thatโ€™s entitled EPA administrator Scott Pruitt, whose record ofย seekingย personalย luxuriesย andย advantagesย at taxpayer expense, whileย gearing policy to polluting industries, andย punishing subordinatesย who object, is breathtakinglyย awful.

But it also pretty well describes Secretary of the Interior Ryanย Zinke.

The latest Zinke outrage is a stunningย investigative reportย in Politico about a development deal in which Zinke stands to benefit financially by leveraging land that was donated to a charitable foundation he established and is now run by his wife, Lola. The proposed tourist development, in Zinkeโ€™s hometown of Whitefish, Montana, is funded by David Lesar, chairman (and, until last year, CEO) of the huge oil services company Halliburton.ย Lesar is a Zinke friend and contributor to his 2014 Houseย campaign.

Halliburton is in line to gain extensive revenues from Zinkeโ€™s actions at Interior to expand drilling on public lands and offshore. The companyโ€™s top lobbyist has regularly met with Zinkeโ€™s Interior Department to discuss issues like hydraulic fracturing, and last year Zinke blocked Obama administration rules that curbed fracking on federal lands. Zinke, in a speech last September to an oil industry group, praised fracking, which has poisoned the water in communities across the U.S. and poses risks of gas leaks and increased globalย warming.

โ€œFracking,โ€ย he said, โ€œis proof that Godโ€™s got a good sense of humor and he lovesย us.โ€

According to the Politico report, Lola Zinke has signed a letter of intent to allow the Whitefish project developer to construct a parking lot on land that was donated to the Zinkesโ€™ foundation for a โ€œVeterans Peace Park.โ€ Meanwhile,ย Whitefishโ€™s city manager said the project developersย โ€œcertainly implied that they were working with [Zinke] to find a placeโ€ in the development for a microbrewery that the Zinkes would operate. The Zinkes also own land adjacent to the development that could increase in value if the project goesย forward.

Marilyn Glynn, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics under George W. Bush, told Politico that the development deal crossed ethical lines and at a minimum required Zinke to recuse from matters involving Halliburton.ย โ€œIn a previous administration, whether Bush or Obama, youโ€™d never run across something like this,โ€ she said. โ€œNobody would be engaging in business dealsโ€ with people whose companies were regulated by their own department. Zinke did not respond to Politicoโ€™s questions about the relationship withย Lesar.

If theย apparent corruptionย in this real estate deal isnโ€™t bad enough โ€” the Zinkes stand to make money off a deal backed by an executive of a major corporation that is seeking, and reaping, benefits from Zinkeโ€™s department โ€” itโ€™s echoed in the troubling manner in which their foundation acquired the land in the first place. Freight railroad giant BNSF Railway had donated the land to the Zinke foundation for the veterans park; soon after that, Zinke won his election for state senate and then voted for a bill that would have aided BNSF by directing millions in state funding to railroadย construction.

But the whole tawdry episode is merely a small piece of the tapestry of sleazy behavior that has characterized Zinke both before and after he took the oath to be interiorย secretary.

There has been so muchย more.

Zinke has been active in funneling money toย scam political committeesย that rip off elderly donors by taking their money and then mostly keeping it for executive and consultant salaries. One of those committees set up by Zinke,ย Special Operations for America, appealed to donors for funding to attack President Obama in 2012 for taking credit for killing Osama bin Laden. But Federal Election Commission reports revealed that only $7,000 of the $180,000 raised by the PAC that year was spent on influencing the election. Meanwhile,ย the PAC doled out almost $40,000 for consulting and travel expenses to a corporation set up by Ryan and Lolaย Zinke.

In March 2017, after joining Trumpโ€™s cabinet, Zinke attended a fundraiser on St. Croix forย Virgin Islands GOP PAC, a group that has raised $5.7 million since it launched in February 2015 but has spent only $76,000 on congressional candidates, including $3,500 to Zinkeโ€™s campaign and Zinkeโ€™s own SEAL PAC.

The Federal Election Commission is nowย probingย SEAL PAC for a range ofย troubling irregularities, including large spending on direct mail and discrepancies inย reporting.

Scott Homell andย Vincent DeVito, who worked for, respectively, Special Operations for America and SEAL PAC, are now two ofย Zinkeโ€™s top aides atย Interior.

As Secretary, Zinke has repeatedly used privateย charter planes, including a $12,375 charter flight from Las Vegas to Whitefish on a plane owned by fossil fuel company executives, and charters between Caribbean islands โ€• all on routes where commercial flights were available. The Departmentโ€™s inspector generalย probedย Zinkeโ€™s June 2017 Las Vegas trip, during which he delivered a pep talk to the Vegas Golden Knights hockey team, owned by Whitefish resident and major Zinke donor Bill Foley, and then charged taxpayers for the charter to Montana; they found that the Knights had offered to reschedule the talk so he could book a commercial flight, but Zinke said, itโ€™s cool, Iโ€™ll take the charter. Zinke didnโ€™t disclose his relationship with Foley to ethics officials reviewing the trip; he also claimed that the speech to the Knights, which never mentioned Interior issues, made sense because he was doing a nearby meeting with county commissioners, but it turned out Zinkeโ€™s team booked that event only after the session with the Knights was setย up.

Zinke also spent $14,000 in taxpayer money onย helicopter ridesย in the DC area last summer so he could attend (1) the swearing-in of hisย head-butting congressional successor Greg Gianforteย and (2) a horseback riding date with Vice Presidentย Pence.

And Zinke and Lolaย brought an Interior security detailย along on their vacation last summer to Greece andย Turkey.

Lola Zinke has reportedly been driving Interior staffย nutsย with her own extensive travel demands, such as last-minute requests to attend and add guests to conservativeย events.

Zinke and Lola also are using a lot of Interior staff time and money to book, for friends and supporters,ย VIP toursย of those American monuments that they havenโ€™t yet, at the behest of corporations,ย turned into uranium minesย andย oil drilling sites.

His staff said Zinke knew nothing aboutย paying $139,000 for a doorย for his office (just as Pruitt says heย didnโ€™t knowย about the $43,000 cost of his soundproofย booth).

Zinke has required his security staff to hoist a special secretarial flag on the Interior Departmentโ€™s roof whenever heโ€™s in the building, and to remove it when Zinke departs. In addition, as the Washington Postย reported, โ€œHe has commissioned commemorative coins with his name on them to give to staff and visitors, but the cost to taxpayers isย unclear.โ€

Zinke also hasย regularly used a personal email address to conduct Interior business, even though โ€ฆ you know: Obviously as a House member he attacked Hillary Clinton for doing justย that.

Zinkeย reassignedย many of Interiorโ€™s senior employees โ€• for example moving Interiorโ€™sย chief climate policy expertย to the royalty collection division โ€” in moves that appeared punitive. (A Department inspector general investigation somehowย concludedย that because Department officials did not document their reasons for reassigning the employees or โ€œgather the information needed to make informed decisions about the reassignments,โ€ the IG could not determine whether or not officials complied with the law.) Zinke also named only political appointees, including several ex-industry lobbyists, to a Department committee on personnel issues, ignoring that career staff are supposed to be part of theย process.

Zinkeโ€™s Whitefish friend/neighborโ€™s two-person company famously obtained aย $300 million contractย to repair Puerto Ricoโ€™s electrical infrastructure after Hurricaneย Maria.

On key policy issues, Zinke, who justifies his decisions to exploit public lands byย speciously claiming to be a geologist, isย doing the bidding of energy industry lobbyistsย โ€”ย except in Montana, where he is protecting lands, perhaps with an eye to seeking higher office there. A conservative political group tied to Pence has this year been running corny, misleadingย campaign-style adsย praising Zinke. (Zinkeย concealedย as a congressman thatย heโ€™d been living in California, not Montana.)

In addition to all the corrupt and self-aggrandizing behavior, there are other ways that Zinke is simplyย awful.

Prior to serving in Congress,ย Zinke, on a 2013 episode of his radio show, hosted a birther and raised questions about President Obamaโ€™s collegeย records.

According to high-ranking Interior staff whoย spoke with CNN,ย Zinke has repeatedly stated that he wonโ€™t focus on staff diversity, saying things like โ€œdiversity isnโ€™t important,โ€ or โ€œI donโ€™t care about diversity,โ€ or โ€œI donโ€™t really think thatโ€™s important anymore.โ€ Of the 33 senior career staff Zinke reassigned, 15 were people ofย color.

Afterย Callista Gingrich, Trumpโ€™s ambassador to the Vatican and wife of Trump cronyย Newt Gingrich, expressed herย deep offenseย when she read that a statue of a nude person might be placed on the National Mall temporarily, Newt brought Callistaโ€™s concerns to Zinke. Days later, the National Park Service, which Zinke oversees, blocked the installation of theย statue.

And Zinke, like Trump and Pruitt, has only hired the bestย people.

  • Zinke staffer Christine Bauserman resigned afterย CNN documentedย inflammatory social media remarks she made about Muslims, African-Americans, LGBT people, and Presidentย Obama.
  • A top Zinke aide, Douglas Domenech,ย took meetingsย with his previous employer, the Koch-connected Texas Public Policy Foundation, while it was engaged in a legal dispute with the department. Doing so possibly violated ethics rules. Adding to the sense that sense that somethingโ€™s wrong here, Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift, toldย The Guardianย the meetings were โ€œprimarily social in nature,โ€ even though Domenechโ€™s calendar shows that the meetings concerned specific policyย issues.
  • Todd Wynn, another top Zinke lieutenant, alsoย scheduled a number of meetingsย with representatives of his former industry group employers, again in possible violation of federal ethicsย rules.
  • Zinkeโ€™s senior adviser Kathleen Benedetto, according to documents, held about twice as manyย meetingsย with mining and fossil-fuel companies as with environmental groups, and afterwards some of those companies benefited directly from Trump administration actions weakening public lands and wildernessย protections.
  • Indur Goklany, a career Interior employee who is connected to the climate-denying Heartland Institute and has said greenhouse gases are โ€œgood news,โ€ wasย taskedย by senior Interior officials early in the administration with rewriting the Departmentโ€™s public positions on climateย change.
  • Scott Angelle, appointed under Trump to be Interiorโ€™s director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, has worked, at the urging of energy companies, toย repealย Obama-era safety rules, including regulations issued after the deadly and costly Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in the Gulf ofย Mexico.

The parallels between the corrupt and ugly behavior of Zinke and of Pruitt are so plain, and the Trump administration is such a backstabbing disaster, that last month a Pruitt aide was caught trying to divert attention from Pruittโ€™s ethics debacle byย dishing dirtย onย Zinke.

Likeย Pruitt, Zinke still has his job probably because he has slavishly worshipped two important masters, even above worshipping himself: the fossil fuel and mining executives who are big donors to the Republican Party, and, of course, the self-focused President Trump. Last September Zinkeย toldย an oil industry group that nearly one-third of Interior Department employees areย not loyalย to him and Trump. Maybe the secretary was on to something there: With the disgraceful record Zinke has compiled, who could blameย them?

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