Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, busted for hiding gun arms shares, list grows of unethical practices by Trump cabinet

A Trail of Unethical Practices

Appointed by Trump at the beginning of his presidential tenure, Zinke is an unwavering supporter of the National Rifle Association. An avid outdoorsmen who hunts and fish, already racked up a trail of questionable practices as Interior Secretary.

Conservationists thought that Zinke would be a proponent of land preservation, but in Trump-like style, he opened up lands to oil and gas drilling in northern Alaska known as The Arctic Refuge in June 2017.

With the promise that the sales will bring in $1bn to the state and federal governments and stimulate a struggling local economy, it places in danger the pristine 19 million acre area created by the Eisenhower administration in 1960.

Now, the Gwich’in, tribal people, indigenous residents of the land, are at risk for surviving. Their primary food source, caribou, is at risk to die out, and with it, the future of the tribe itself.

After two major hurricanes ripped Puerto Rico, and left its infrastructure in tatters, he and Puerto Rico’s electricity authority (PREPA) awarded a two-person, Montana firm, Whitefish Energy Holdings LLC, a $300 million contract to restore power in Puerto Rico. The energy company is also based in Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish.

Highly inexperienced to carryout the project,  the company was tasked with building more than 2,500 miles of three or four transmission lines to the 3.4 million living on the island. Slow and inefficient, was removed from the project November 2017,  but billed Puerto Rico $319 an hour for emergency workers.

In the past, he used military flights to attend Republican fundraiser, and for fun, he installed an arcade game in the cafeteria that simulated hunting deer. 

As the list of unethical practices grow amongst multiple cabinet members and Trump, Newsweek reports that this is the most corrupt Administration in history.