Federal investigators were not able to substantiate claims Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reassigned about 30 senior officials based on political considerations, according to a new report.
“Absent documentation, we could not determine whether or not the ERB complied with Federal legal requirements,” Interior’s Office of Inspector General reported on Wednesday.
“With no documented action plan for the reassignments and inconsistent statements from the [Executive Resources Board (ERB)] regarding its rationale, we were prevented from making a clear determination whether or not the DOI met the legal requirements,” reads the report.
“We found that the ERB did not follow the [Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM)] guidance for organizing and operating an ERB detailed in a September 2009 memorandum that provided recommendations for agencies to consider when developing ERBs,” the IG reported.
The 2009 OPM guidance, however, has no force of law. Interior Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt believed the department followed the law, according to his response to the audit.
“Obviously, the evaluation confirmed the Department’s long-held view that the ERB has the lawful authority to reassign SES Members and has done so here,” Zinke’s spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.
“Additionally, the Department appreciates the IG making recommendations on the board’s effectiveness,” she said. “As outlined by the Deputy Secretary in his response to the IG, the ERB has already adopted and is implementing best practices and has moved aggressively to better communicate its vision and plan going forward.”
The IG noted a lack of record-keeping regarding the decision to relocate dozens of senior Interior officials. The lack of adequate record-keeping made it impossible for investigators to determine the legality of the reassignments, they reported.
The ERB “did not document its plan or the reasons it used when selecting senior executives for reassignment, nor did it gather the information needed to make informed decisions about the reassignments,” reads the report.
Interior’s Inspector General began investigating Zinke’s reassignment of about 30 Senior Executive Service (SES) officials last year in response to a request from Democrats on the Senate Committee on Energy and Environment.
Democrats demanded an investigation after then-Interior official Joel Clement claimed in a Washington Post op-ed he was “retaliated against for speaking out publicly about the dangers that climate change poses to Alaska Native communities.”
“Any suggestion that the Department is reassigning SES employees to force them to resign, to silence their voices, or to punish them for the conscientious performance of their public duties is extremely troubling and calls for the closest examination,” Democrats wrote in their letter to the IG’s office.
Clement served as the director of the Office of Policy Analysis until Zinke transferred him to serve as a senior adviser to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue. Clement filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel, seeking whistleblower protection.
Clement has since left the Interior Department, and is now a senior fellow at the Union of Concerned Scientists — a left-wing activist group that agitates for global warming policies and opposes the Trump administration’s agenda. Clement’s Twitter profile features the hashtag “#ZinkeResign.”
But leaving the Interior Department hasn’t stopped Clement, and his lawyer, from working with reporters on negative stories about the Interior Department, including a recent story essentially accusing Zinke of targeting minority employees.
Clement’s attorney Katie Atkinson told CNN reportedly showing that 15 of the 33 reassigned senior officials were minorities. That CNN piece also targeted Zinke for prioritizing “excellence” over “diversity” when hiring.
The Interior Department said the reassignments were in accordance with an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in 2017 to reorganize federal agencies and cut spending.
“The President signed an executive order to reorganize the federal government for the future and the Secretary has been absolutely out front on that issue,” Swift previously told TheDCNF.
“The purpose of the Senior Executive Service is to ensure that the executive management of the government of the United States is responsive to the needs, policies, and goals of the Nation and otherwise is of the highest quality,” she said. “Senior executives are the highest paid employees in the federal government and signed up for the SES knowing that they could be called upon to work in different positions at any time.”
“Congress meant for the SES to be a mobile force that are capable of taking on different assignments to meet the needs of the agency,” she said. “Personnel moves among the Senior Executive Service are conducted to better serve the taxpayer and the Department’s operations.”
Clement responded to the IG’s report as well, telling The Washington Post, “[i]t’s remarkable that the political staff at Interior would be so blithe, thoughtless, and careless during a time of intense scrutiny.”
“It begs the question, what did they have to hide?” Clement said.
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