"Federal government investigators want a ladder to help them surmount the stone wall the Interior Department’s watchdog office said it encountered while attempting to interview the Trump administration’s two top agency officials.
In a report issued last week concerning former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, and in an earlier report concerning his predecessor, Ryan Zinke, Interior’s Office of Inspector General investigators said they were unable to secure testimony from either man.
“After he left the DOI in January 2021, Mr. Bernhardt declined to participate in a voluntary interview with our office without special conditions that were not consistent with our interviewing policies and practices,” the OIG reported last week (E&E News PM, May 19).
The investigators added that “various current and former congressional staff [also] declined our requests for interviews” and said the reported resistance hindered the OIG’s ability to reach a definitive conclusion concerning allegations about Bernhardt’s lobbying on behalf of a California water district."
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