Ryan Zinke leaves Department of Interior amid ethics violation accusations
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke resigned from his job over the weekend. President Trump tweeted Zinke’s resignation on Saturday. According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration lost confidence in Zinke. Administration officials told Zinke he had to resign by the end of the year or be fired. Zinke faces several investigations for ethics violations. One most notable, whether a land deal Zinke struck in his hometown of Whitefish, Mont., with David J. Lesar, chairman of oil services company Halliburton, constituted a conflict of interest. According to the New York Times, the Interior Department’s inspector general is also examining Zinke’s decision to block two Native American tribes from opening a casino in Connecticut. MGM Resorts International, which planned to build a casino not far from the proposed tribal one, heavily lobbied Zinke’s office. Zinke blamed his departure in a private resignation letter, obtained by The Washington Post, on “vicious and politically motivated attacks.”
