Trump’s Swamp Is So Deep His Staff Needs A Pocket Guide Of All Their Conflicts — Seriously

Trump filled his administration with industry insiders, ripe with conflicts of interest. In fact, one Trump official has so many conflicts of interest that he actually has to carry around a list of them all — seriously. Here’s the latest from Trump’s swamp:

 

Secretary Zinke’s heir apparent, deputy interior secretary and former lobbyist David Bernhardt, has so many potential conflicts of interests he has to carry around a list of them all.

Washington Post: “Bernhardt’s relentless work ethic helps explain how he’s managed to advance Trump’s pro-industry agenda over the nation’s public lands. Having worked for years as a lobbyist representing many of the very businesses he now regulates, he walked into the No. 2 job at Interior with so many potential conflicts of interest he has to carry a small card listing them all… To keep track of his conflicts he carries a list the size of a credit card of 22 former clients still covered by his ethics recusal, including oil industry heavyweights like Halliburton Energy Services.”

Zinke chose not to cite climate change as a reason for the California wildfires, just a few months after he pledged his loyalty to the fossil fuel industry.

CNN: “Zinke cited several reasons for the increase in devastation including dead and dying timber and beetle infestation. He stopped short of blaming climate change.”

 

Vox: “Zinke gave the keynote address at the Louisiana Oil and Gas Association’s fall meeting in Lafayette, Louisiana. He told the conference over lunch ‘our government should work for you,’ according to organizers.”

A Trump-appointed EPA regional administrator, Trey Glenn, resigned after being indicted on ethics charges, stemming from work he did for a coal company.

AL.com: “Onis ‘Trey’ Glenn III has resigned from his position as Region 4 Administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after being indicted on ethics charges in Alabama.”

Washington Post: “The charges facing Glenn and a former business partner appeared to stem from past work helping a coal company fight liability in an EPA-mandated cleanup of a polluted site in north Birmingham.”

Secretary Perry used tens of thousands of dollars from his Texas gubernatorial campaign account to pay for his wife to accompany him on official travel, instead of paying for it himself.

Houston Chronicle: “U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry left the Texas governor’s mansion four years ago. But he is still tapping his Texas campaign account to fly wife Anita Perry around the globe for nuclear talks and to speak at international energy meetings, records show.”

 

Bloomberg: “Anita Perry, a nurse by training, has engaged in official government activities while her husband took part in the Africa Oil Week conference in Cape Town in October 2017 and a G-7 ministerial meeting in Rome in April 2017, according to the filings.”