OIG: Most, But Not All, Of Secretary Zinke's Travel "Generally" Was Reasonable

Most of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's travel expenses in 2017 were "generally" reasonable, the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General found, but a $12,375 charter flight from Las Vegas to Kalispell, Montana, was questionable.

In addition, the review of the secretary's travel found that Interior obligated more than $185,000 for flights on Air Force One and Air Force Two, including $52,000 for two flights he was invited on by the White House but did not take. Nevertheless, OIG said, Interior paid the $52,000.

The Inspector General's office opened the investigation into Secretary Zinke's travel last September after he spent $12,375 on the charter flight from Las Vegas to Kalispell, Montana, so he could attend a Western Governors' Association function in his hometown of Whitefish, Montana. A commercial flight would have cost the secretary around $300. After news broke of the charter expense, Secretary Zinke referred to it as "a little BS over travel."

The OIG, however, determined that the private charter could have been avoided with better planning.

"Our investigation focused on whether Zinke’s use of chartered flights and U.S. military aircraft followed relevant law, policy, rules, and regulations," OIG said Monday in releasing its findings publicly. "We also examined the purpose of each trip for which a chartered flight was used to determine whether the DOI had incurred travel expenses for non-DOI-related events and whether the uses and costs of these flights were reasonable or unavoidable. 

"... We determined that Zinke’s use of chartered flights in fiscal year (FY) 2017 generally followed relevant law, policy, rules, and regulations."

However, the OIG investigation into the charter flight determined that it had been approved by Interior Department ethics officials "without complete information, and that the use of the chartered flight might have been avoided if the DOI employees who were scheduling Zinke’s trip had worked with the Golden Knights to better accommodate his schedule."

The Golden Knights are a Las Vegas-based hockey team owned, according to the Center for Western Priorities, by Bill Foley, chairman of Fidelity National Financial, the largest contributor to Mr. Zinke's political career. Rather than fly commercial to Montana for roughly $300, the Interior secretary passed up that flight so he could stay longer in Las Vegas to speak to "approximately 44 hockey players between the ages of 18 and 23, plus Golden Knights scouting staff, hockey operations staff, and coaches." 

"Heather Swift, the DOI’s spokesperson, asserted in a September 2017 news article that this was a 'key audience of people we are trying to target to use our public lands,'" the OIG added.

The 14-page report also noted that Interior's ethics official who approved the travel plans, Melinda Loftin, did not know that his speaking engagement in Las Vegas was unrelated to his job overseeing the country's public lands. 

After reviewing a video of Zinke’s speech to the Golden Knights, Loftin acknowledged that the speech was not what she had expected Zinke to talk about. Although Swift has stated to the media that the attendees were a “key audience” of the DOI, Loftin noted that Zinke never mentioned the DOI or his role as Secretary in the speech and that the speech itself concentrated on his experience as a Navy SEAL. Loftin said that the speech was “sort of an inspirational-type speech, one that a coach might give either before a game [or] during the locker room at halftime,” and that it had “no tie” to the DOI. “It certainly should have been tied to the Department of the Interior and in some way reflective of our mission,” she said, for it to qualify as an official event.

"Moreover," the OIG report added, "had ethics officials been made aware that the Golden Knights’ owner had been a donor to Zinke’s congressional campaign, it might have prompted further review and discussion."

Ms. Swift told reporters after the OIG report surfaced that it supported Interior's decision-making on the flights. 

Yet the OIG report prompted two Democrats in the House of Representatives to call on Republicans to "conduct more careful oversight of Trump administration officials."

“Secretary Zinke ignores the rules when it suits him, and Republicans in Congress have shown no interest in conducting any oversight of his highly controversial tenure,” Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Arizona, said. “People in federal leadership positions are supposed to set a higher standard than this, and Congress is supposed to enforce that standard. Instead Republicans in Washington have aided and abetted Secretary Zinke’s embarrassing behavior every step of the way. He needs to stop treating federal resources as his personal fiefdom.”

Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Virginia, added that, "The Office of Inspector General has determined that Secretary Zinke’s expensive, five-figure charter flight 'could have been avoided.' The Department of the Interior must be responsible and frugal with taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars. This Cabinet and administration needs to end these frivolous luxury expenses and, like all Americans, make prudent and penny-wise financial decisions.”

Two other charter flights involving Secretary Zinke, one in the Virgin Islands and another in Alaska, were determined to be reasonable by the OIG.

Meanwhile, the OIG said it was continuing to review "other issues pertaining to Zinke’s travel, including the use of DOI-owned vehicles, in a separate investigation."