ETHICS/INTERIOR/RYAN ZINKE: “The Interior Department’s inspector general’s office has opened an investigation into Secretary Ryan Zinke’s use of taxpayer-funded charter planes, a spokeswoman said Monday [10-2-17].
The watchdog has ‘received numerous complaints’ and launched its investigation late last week, said Nancy K. DiPaolo, spokeswoman for Interior’s Office of the Inspector General.
Zinke is one of several members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet to face questions over his expensive travel, along with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt and former HHS Secretary Tom Price, who resigned Friday.
The secretary has flown on government-owned or -chartered aircraft several times this year, including one $12,000 trip from Las Vegas to an airport near his hometown in Montana and another trip in the Caribbean, as POLITICO reported last week…
Zinke last week called the attention paid to the events ‘a little B.S.’ and said he followed the law. On Friday evening, after Price’s resignation, the White House cracked down on non-commercial travel by Cabinet members. ‘[J]ust because something is legal doesn’t make it right,’ Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney wrote in a memo to agency heads.”
-Ben Lefebvre, “Interior watchdog opens investigation into Zinke’s travel,” Politico, Oct. 2, 2017 02:13pm