Do you remember Stinky Zinke, infamous for corruption, luxury charter flights at your expense and theft of your public land for polluters? His successor, David Bernhardt, aka Bernfart, is even worse. Stinky made you pay through the nose to move him around. Bernfart wants you to pay through the nose to move the Interior Department to him. He’s so sleazy that he generated an ethics investigation in less than a week after confirmation.
The Interior Department’s internal watchdog has opened an investigation into ethics complaints against the agency’s newly installed secretary, David Bernhardt.
Mr. Bernhardt, a former lobbyist for the oil and agribusiness industries, was confirmed by the Senate last week to head the agency, which oversees the nation’s 500 million acres of public land and vast coastal waters. He has played a central role in writing policies designed to advance President Trump’s policy of “energy dominance” and expanding fossil fuel exploration. He has been dogged by allegations of ethics violations since joining the Trump administration as the Interior Department’s deputy secretary in 2017.
Eight senators, all Democrats, and four government ethics watchdog groups have requested that the Interior Department’s inspector general open formal investigations into various aspects of Mr. Bernhardt’s conduct. Among the chief complaints have been allegations, revealed by three separate New York Times investigations, that Mr. Bernhardt used his position to advance a policy pushed by his former lobbying client; that he continued working as a lobbyist after filing legal paperwork declaring that he had ceased lobbying; and that he intervened to block the release of a scientific report showing the harmful effects of a chemical pesticide on certain endangered species.
In a letter sent Monday to the senators who filed the ethics complaints, Mary L. Kendall, the deputy inspector general of the Interior Department, wrote that she had received seven complaints from “a wide assortment of complainants alleging various conflicts of interest and other violations” by Mr. Bernhardt, adding that she had “opened an investigation to address them.”… RESIST!!
Inserted from <NY Times>
That article was from April 15. On moving the Department, here’s Rachel Maddow.
Here’s the Rule of Republican Reich. Whenever a Republican turd is flushed, the next one smells even worse.
RESIST!!
9 Responses to “A Paragon of Corruption”
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No surprise! Dumpy, and cronies, must have a list of virtual people that rates them from the high point of “Jackass,” to the low point of “WTF, No Socially Redeemable Qualities,” (to keep the language cleanish) upon which they work downwards with each new appointment.
How sad. Normally, he would have been fired, based on his conduct, and booted out. This guy doesn’t surprise me one bit for the underhanded things he does, nor says, with re: to the dt administration.
I can’t wait until someone gets in there with morals, and ethics, and works for the people!
The Mango Muttonhead doesn’t give a rat’s tail about competence, only about who has best kissed his enormous arse, or their offspring.
Awful to continue to read of another one who gets away with all of his evil doings. Really shameful.
What bothers me is we have a leader who seems to encourage this type of actions by his cronies.
I honestly hope that tRumpy dumpty gets kicked out of office soon, so we can finally get our country back on some sort of norm again.
I had heard he is moving the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) here, specifically to Grand Junction. But if my normal radio station hadn’t been having a fund drive, I probably wouldn’t have heard of it. And the details (see the article) are very sketchy, and I assume even sketchier for most other moves. It does look to me like Cory Gardner will now campaign, or try to, on the jobs (if there are any – the plan is to move the current employees to the new location) and consumers (looks like a maximum of 186 – 61 will stay in DC and, if I read it right, 137 scattered to other states. Didn’t the KXL pipeline [falsely] claim to provide more jobs than that?) that the move will bring to the State. To me it looks like a crock. One quote:
I really don’t know where to start on this one:
– On the fact that investigations into Bernhardt have started only a week after he was confirmed by the Republican majority in the Senate, who knowingly put him where he is now?
– On the fact that Bernhardt is trying to destroy the department from within by moving it to Colorado, to his back-yard, so to speak, within a week of his confirmation, taking his cue from the USDA?
– On the fact that Rachel Maddow again warns for the umpteenth to watch what they do, not listen to what they say, something that has kept her show going for at least three years, running out of time each week because there’s so much else to watch over?
– On the fact that Trump and his cronies are on the verge of war with Iran, the next and biggest distraction of all?
How I wish that every American voter were as sharp as you, cutting straight to the essence!
Of, course, if they were, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with.
So Trump knows the best people, eh? More like he knows the biggest crooks! They are destroying lives all in service to greed! Bury the entire administration in bull manure . . . it would be so appropriate.
Thanks and pooped Hugs to all.