We're a year into the Trump administration, and scandals from nearly every administration appointee just keep coming.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is a shareholder in a private Montana company that manufactures and sells firearms and advanced weapons materials, a financial interest he did not disclose when nominated last year.
In response to inquiries from HuffPost, both Zinke and the company, PROOF Research Inc., confirmed the secretary’s holdings, though the dollar value placed on them varied. This previously undisclosed holding comes to light after numerous decisions in his first year in office that benefited the hunting and gun industries.
Zinke has been one of the gun lobby's most reliable allies across all issues, in this administration, but in this case the link is distinctly personal. Zinke had previously done consulting work for this particular company a half-decade back and currently owns only a token number of shares; Whether Zinke was obligated to disclose them depends whether his shares were worth more or less than $1000, back when he was writing up that paperwork. The company's primary shareholder asserts that they are not.
But it's the second bit that's more troubling. Once again, it seems that any company based in Whitefish, Montana—the former congressman's hometown—has been getting a prince's treatment when it comes to getting government attention and contracts—and Zinke isn't troubled by federal conflict-of-interest laws when it comes to who he meets with.
According to Zinke’s work calendar, he and his top aides met with a group of PROOF Research executives and a company lobbyist on April 11, 2017. The schedule entry was titled, “Brief Update of Proof Research.”
Um, all right. And the head of United States Department of the Interior is getting an official "update" on the doings of an obscure Whitefish gun company because why now?
In a follow-up phone conversation, Murphy explained that the company met with Zinke last year mainly because of the “Montana connection,” in an attempt to determine “whether the Secretary knew of any needs in the government for the company’s products.”
Oh, so it was just to see if Zinke might be able to steer some sweet government money to his old friends; perhaps members of the department need, say, a few hundred trailers of new top-notch rifles for some reason.
Just for completeness, here's a small list of other scandals currently bubbling in Zinke's office:
• Two USGS appointees have resigned because Zinke requested and received a report of new oil and gas assessments before its public release, a violation of ethical guidelines due to the usefulness of that information to anyone who might seek to use it to place market bets before the wider public was informed.
• A hastily written order to exempt Florida and only Florida from a new push to open American waters to new offshore drilling.
• Extensive use of private jet trips on the taxpayer dime, including ones that conspicuously coincide with private Republican political events.
• Zinke's continued connections to "scam PACs", political action committees that operate primarily as money-gathering schemes for their dodgy proprietors.
• An Office of the Inspector General investigation over Zinke’s threat to use his department to retaliate against Alaska’s Republican senators for Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s vote against an Obamacare repeal.
• A $300 million government contract to rebuild the Puerto Rico power grid after Hurricane Maria that went to a tiny two-person company in Zinke's hometown.
• An appearance at an American Petroleum Institute trade meeting held at Trump International Hotel—a meeting that financially benefited Donald J. Trump personally.
If you are keeping track. And we are keeping track.