Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke destroyed any insinuation that he misused taxpayer money to pay for his travel as Interior Secretary on Tuesday saying the claims were “misleading,” reports The Daily Caller.
Zinke spoke in front of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Tuesday to discuss the 2019 budget proposal for the Department of the Interior.
Democratic Washington Sen. and ranking committee member Maria Cantwell took the opportunity to ask Zinke if it was a “mistake” when he chartered a flight from Las Vegas to Montana.
“Insults, innuendos are misleading,” Zinke responded.
The charges that the Committee is questioning are three flights two taken with other public officials and the third, the Las Vegas flight Cantwell referenced was taken to make a scheduled appointment with the Montana governor, Zinke went on to explain. He also contrasted his travel with that of former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, whose similar flights cost taxpayers about $1 million.
“I resent the fact of your insults. I resent the fact they’re misleading,” Zinke said. “I’ll go through it line by line.”
The inspector general of the Department of the Interior opened an investigation into the secretary’s travel, while an ethics board cleared each of Zinke’s flights.
“I can take attacks on myself and my family … We’re a military family,” Zinke said later in the hearing. “We live by ‘Do right, fear no man, wake up and make sure we are accountable.’ Everything I do is looked at through a whole legal team and office of ethics.”
The Las Vegas trip attracted particular attention because Zinke was appearing at an event affiliated with a major campaign donor that kept him from catching a commercial flight to Montana.
He gave a motivational speech to a dinner for the Las Vegas Golden Knights, a new hockey team owned by Bill Foley, the chairman of Fidelity National Financial. Employees and PACs associated with Fidelity and associated companies have donated nearly $200,000 to Zinke’s past congressional campaigns, reports Politico.
A watchdog group, the Campaign for Accountability, was among those who asked Interior’s IG to investigate. The group said Zinke’s Vegas speech “seems to be a special favor provided to a major political supporter of both Sec. Zinke and the president at taxpayer expense.”
Zinke last week called the attention paid to the events “a little B.S.” and said he followed the law.
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