Inspector General: Former Interior Secretary Misled Officials On Real Estate Deal While In Office

Former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lied to federal investigators about his involvement with a real estate project in his Montana hometown, according to a report released Wednesday following a federal investigation.

After being appointed by former President Donald Trump to lead the Interior Department, Zinke continued to be involved with a development that involved a microbrewery in Whitefish, Montana, investigators with Interior's Office of the Inspector General found. 

The IG cleared Zinke of criminal wrongdoing, it said in the report released on Wednesday, but concluded he violated federal ethics rules after investigators uncovered a collection of emails and texts between him and other principal parties involved in a land deal with the nonprofit Great Northern Veterans Peace Park Foundation between August 2017 and July 2018. Established in 2007 by Zinke and others, the foundation planned to build a community sledding hill in Whitefish, the Associated Press reports.

Three developers operating as 95 Karrow LLC  — including a senior executive with the energy company Halliburton, which the AP identified as former chairman David Lesar — were in talks with Zinke and his wife to develop a mixed-use project abutting the foundation's site that involved a hotel, restaurant and other businesses, according to the IG report.

The developers approached the foundation for an easement on a portion of its property for parking, the Washington Post reported in 2018. While Zinke resigned from the foundation upon his appointment, investigators maintain he remained involved in talks with the developers over the course of 2017 and 2018.

“Secretary Zinke played an extensive, direct, and substantive role in representing the Foundation during negotiations with the 95 Karrow project developers,” investigators said in the report. "Many of these communications contained substantive discussions about specific design issues related to the 95 Karrow project, including the developer’s proposed use of the Foundation property for a parking lot and Secretary Zinke’s apparent interest in operating a microbrewery on site.

“In light of these communications, we found that Secretary Zinke failed to abide by his ethics obligations in which he committed not to manage or provide any other services to the Foundation after his appointment as Secretary of the Interior.”

Investigators also said Zinke, who is running for Congress as a Republican in Montana, misled Interior Department ethics officials about his continued involvement with the foundation and the developers when questioned, and that Zinke misused his position as secretary by directing office employees to assist in arranging a meeting with the developers at the Interior Department's Washington headquarters in August 2017. The meeting was followed by a Zinke-guided tour of the Lincoln Memorial and dinner at a local restaurant, according to the IG report. Interior staff also printed documents related to 95 Karrow, which violates federal rules against using subordinates for nonofficial duties.

Zinke was confirmed in 2017 to lead Interior — which oversees the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, among others — a role he held until he resigned in 2019.

Zinke faced numerous ethics investigations during his tenure, all but one of which have been dismissed, the Washington Post reported. At the time, Zinke said he didn't want to “spend thousands of dollars defending myself and my family against false allegations."

A spokesperson for Zinke's campaign told the Washington Post that the IG report was “a political hit job."

“The report is totally subjective and [they] admitted they released it because their conclusions were too flimsy and biased for DOJ to even consider,” the spokesperson said.

Investigators sent their findings last summer to the Department of Justice, which declined to press charges.