At the start of 2019, Donald Trump sacked then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke following the latest scandal involving maybe the single most scandal-plagued Cabinet secretary in an administration where scandals were practically a goal. It’s hard to say what the final straw really was when it came to Zinke losing his post. Was it that he made multiple flights on a department plane to participate in conservative political events? That he lied about his job as steward of public lands? Or that he lied to the department’s inspector general after breaking ethics rules and ended up being referred to the Department of Justice? Was it allegations that he took bribes to deny casino licenses to two Connecticut tribes? His involvement in handing out contracts for disaster relief in Puerto Rico to inexperienced pals? Or maybe just the big Montana land deal in which Zinke was working with the head of an oil services company to lock up rights to a potential oil and gas field?
Whatever it was, little of that matters, as former Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen put a hold on investigations into Zinke, and all that stuff was just allowed to quietly slip away.
But even if he stayed out of jail, Zinke was also out of office. Which left him with no private plane for his Virgin Islands trips. So Zinke was anxious to get back in a spot where he was worth bribing.
In fact, Trump did fire Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Nov. 9, 2020, just six days after the presidential election. To make clear just how happy he was about this departure, Trump tweeted that Esper had been “terminated.” The reason for the schism apparently being that Esper refused to invoke the Insurrection Act when Trump wanted him to bring in regular Army troops to face off with protesters following the police murder of George Floyd. He sent troops that had been ordered to Washington back to their bases, rather than sending them to fight in the streets of the capital. So … he had to go.
However, despite Zinke’s eager ‘Oh, oh, over here, Mr. Trump!’ routine, he didn’t get the post. He did, however, go right back home to Montana and win himself a seat as a representative in Congress. He’ll be back in D.C. come January.
