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Two new reports from government watchdog agencies detail the malfeasance at the Interior Department during the Trump administration:
A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the relocation of the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado significantly reduced the number of Black employees at the agency, created wide-spread staffing shortages, and drove out long-serving employees with decades of professional experience. “In our interviews with 13 BLM staff members, almost all told us that the loss of experienced staff negatively affected their offices’ ability to conduct its duties,” the report said. “For example, one staff member said that the loss of institutional knowledge about laws and regulations meant that BLM was not able to provide knowledgeable input on proposed rules and legislation.” The result of all this upheaval is a concern expressed in the GAO report that the “BLM lacks reasonable assurance the agency will have the workforce necessary to achieve its goals in managing millions of acres of public lands.”
The findings of a new report from the Interior Department's Office of Inspector General (OIG) show that Ben Cassidy, a former high-ranking Interior Department official in the Trump administration, repeatedly violated ethics rules by communicating with and directly participating in matters that involved his longtime former employer, the National Rifle Association. The OIG report's arrival is four years after Cassidy’s misconduct, and more than two and a half years after Interior’s watchdog opened an ethics probe into alleged violations by Cassidy and five other Trump-era Interior officials who maintained close ties to former employers—long after the officials have left the agency. CWP Deputy Director Aaron Weiss said the report is “more proof that blatant corruption was a feature, not a bug” under first Trump interior secretary Ryan Zinke and Trump’s second interior secretary, David Bernhardt. “Doing favors for old buddies was expected and encouraged. It’s unfortunate that this report, which mostly regurgitates reporting from years ago, took so long to release. Ethics pledges are only meaningful if there are consequences for breaking them.”
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