Trump's scandal-haunted Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is out

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke (previously) is leaving the cabinet at the end of the month.


Zinke was one of Trump's most deplorable swamp-monsters: a man so loathed that even Scott Priutt couldn't stand him, and for good reason: this is the guy who handed a $300m government contract to fix power lines in hurricane-wracked Puerto Rico to a two-man shop run by old buddies; defrauded the taxpayer with bogus travel-expenses, removed endangered bears from the endangered species list, let oil companies drill in national parks and blanked out his whole calendar.

It's not clear whether he was fired for being a gross liability, or quit ahead of the sinking of the Trump ship. Doubtless he will parachute into a sweet industry job to collect a payout from the corporations he benefited while suckling on the public's teat.

Ryan Zinke: US interior secretary to leave administration [BBC]