Before Scott Pruitt finally resigned, the tenor of his tenure’s scandals had gone from obvious industry favoritism and a sweetheart rent deal with a lobbyist, to abusing his government power and privilege by insisting his drivers turn on the sirens to get him to dinner on time, to finally just purely bizare stories about sending aides to find used Trump Hotel mattresses, seeking out a job for his wife, and buying fancy pens and snacks.
Since Pruitt’s exit, Ryan Zinke over at the Department of Interior has taken the lead as cabinet member under the most investigations (and with Dems controlling the House, there will be many more to come). Reports about these investigations are starting to leak out, as is evidence Zinke violated his ethics pledge, prompting Trump to express some skepticism. Politico suggests the secretary may be eying the revolving door to Fox News or energy companies, so keep an eye on Has Ryan Zinke Been Fired Yet dot com.
And as Zinke continues to rack up negative headlines, it seems he has followed the Pruitt playbook and entered the world of absurdities.
On Tuesday, the Washington Post and Politico reported that a drunken young, BBQing man who claimed to be Zinke emerged from Zinke’s DC rental home to accost neighbors who were requesting a black Mercedes (registered to an Uber driver in New York) stop taking up three parking spaces in front of Zinke’s residences, where it had been idling for hours.
This, obviously, is very weird. But it gets weirder! Not only did a man who the neighbors immediately recognized as NOT Zinke claim to be the Secretary and launch into an expletive-laden argument with the neighbors, but he also apparently went inside and called the National Park Service Police. They showed up shortly thereafter, “fully riot-geared out,” per Politico.
The actual DC police were apparently not notified. This means that either Zinke himself directly called his agency’s law enforcement branch on his neighbors for daring to request a car not take up three parking spots, or he authorized whoever was staying in his residence to use the Park Police as their personal muscle to intimidate the neighbors. Obviously, this is not a particularly prudent or responsible use of the taxpayer-funded police force, and could become the latest example of Zinke using public money for his personal benefit.
Interior claims that Zinke, the former Navy SEAL, was inside the house, and called out of fear that a “suspicious individual” (his neighbor) was staking out the residence (asking the driver to move the car). The DOI also claimed that after the call was made, another individual was outside yelling expletives about Zinke and President Trump. But neighbors told Politico that “nothing about [Interior’s claims] is true.” In comments to Politico, they express doubt that Zinke was home at all, based on the fact that his car wasn’t there and how the Park Police spoke about Zinke authorizing the call, as opposed to making it himself.
And Zinke was not one of the four men who later piled into the Mercedes before it left, so wherever that party was going, he was not along for the ride.
Oh, the name of the drunken Zinke-impersonator responsible for pushing Zinke, currently facing a relatively tame investigation into his Halliburton-microbrewery, all the way into Pruitt’s scandal absurda territory?
Scott.
He wouldn’t give his last name, but we’d like to think it rhymes with “Brewit.”
Top Climate and Clean Energy Stories: