Ryan Zinke, US president Donald Trump’s secretary of the interior, will resign from office by the end of the year, according to multiple press reports and a tweet from the president. Zinke reportedly handed in his resignation on Saturday.
Zinke has been tied to a litany of scandals; at least 15 investigations have been opened on his conduct in office. Some of the investigations already have been closed, including one due to scant recordkeeping by the Interior Department, which prevented an inquiry into whether it violated federal law by re-assigning dozens of employees. Another investigation, into Zinke’s decision to block a $1 million coal mining study, was hamstrung after the department simply “declined to explain its reasoning,” the New York Times reported.
The most serious of the open allegations against him involves a private land deal in Whitefish, Montana, between a foundation he started and a Halliburton $HAL executive who potentially stood to gain from Zinke’s power over oil and gas leases on public lands. Democrats who called for the investigation suggested the deal might violate federal conflict of interest laws.
Zinke’s time in office has been dominated by his desire to make the US “the strongest energy superpower this world has ever known,” primarily by opening more federal land to oil and gas drilling—virtually everywhere except his home state of Montana. He has proposed to open more than 90% of the US outer continental shelf waters to drilling, and moved to shrink several national monuments, where energy exploration is historically prohibited.
These are just some of the other scandals that have plagued Zinke’s tenure as interior secretary.
Two weeks ago, Zinke responded to US congressman Raul Grijalva’s call for him to resign by calling Grijalva, a Democrat from Arizona, “drunken and hostile.”
Trump indicated in a tweet that his pick for Zinke’s successor will be announced next week.
