Interior Secretary Zinke resigns
His land deal with chair of oil giant Halliburton is under investigation
Washington — Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke submitted his resignation to the White House on Saturday, facing intense pressure from the White House amid multiple probes tied to his real estate dealings in Montana and conduct while in office.
President Donald Trump announced Zinke’s exit via twitter Saturday morning, and offered praise for the embattled Interior chief.
“Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will be leaving the Administration at the end of the year after having served for a period of almost two years,” the president tweeted, trailing off in a second sentence. “Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation ....... ”
Behind the scenes, however, the White House had been pushing Zinke to resign for weeks, administration officials said.
Zinke — the first Montanan to serve in a presidential Cabinet — is the fourth Trump Cabinet member to resign under an ethics cloud in less than two years. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt also relinquished their posts after coming under scrutiny for how they spent taxpayer dollars on their travel, among other allegations.
For Zinke the key moment in his loss of support at the White House came in October, when Interior’s inspector general referred one of its inquiries to the Justice Department, according to two senior administration officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
That probe, which still is ongoing, is examining whether a land deal Zinke struck with the chairman of the oil services giant Halliburton in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., constituted a conflict of interest.
As the leading advocate for Trump’s push to expand domestic energy production, the former Navy SEAL and Montana congressman became a lightning rod for controversy. He was hailed by energy industry officials for relaxing Obama-era environmental rules and opening up wide swaths of federal land and federal waters for drilling. But environmental groups assailed his policies and conducted opposition research into his management practices and financial dealings.
Several advocacy groups welcomed his departure Saturday, even as they pivoted to attack Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt, who will take over in the interim. Bernhardt, a skilled policy expert who has steered most of Interior’s key policy decisions since joining the department in August 2017, is one of several Western Republicans under possible consideration for the job.
“Ryan Zinke will go down as the most anti-conservation Interior secretary in our nation’s history,” said Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities. “Surrounding himself with former lobbyists, it quickly became clear that Ryan Zinke was a pawn for the oil and gas industry. We can expect more of the same from acting Secretary David Bernhardt, but without the laughable Teddy Roosevelt comparisons.”