Probe: US Interior official used office for personal gain

BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A senior Trump administration official misused his office for private gain by capitalizing on his government connections to help get a family member hired at the Environmental Protection Agency, investigators said.

The Interior Department’s Inspector General found that Assistant Interior Secretary Douglas Domenech reached out to a senior EPA official in person and later by email in 2017 to advocate for the unnamed relative when that person was seeking a job at the agency.

Investigators said Domenech also appeared to misuse his position to promote a second family member’s wedding-related business to the same EPA official, who at the time was engaged.

The Associated Press obtained a report detailing the investigation in advance of its public release.

It’s the second finding of ethical violations in six months against Domenech, the agency’s assistant secretary for insular and international affairs. In December, investigators found that he broke federal ethics rules by twice meeting with his old employer, a conservative Texas-based policy group, to discuss legal disputes between the group and the agency.

The contacts between Domenech and the EPA official began at a concert at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia in the fall of 2017. Domenech, three family members and the senior EPA official had received free tickets through the office of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

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While there, Domenech “used his position to gain access to the EPA senior official when he believed family member 1 could not,” the report said.

Domenech told investigators that one of the emails he sent to the EPA official to follow up on the meeting at Wolf Trap was a “courtesy” to move the process along.

“When asked if moving the process along was a way to influence the EPA hiring process, Domenech said, ‘Well, when I think of influencing … I guess you’re right. I was trying to influence the process to move along. That’s different than influencing the process to hire,'” the report said.

Investigators for Inspector General Mark Greenblatt concluded Domenech’s actions were specifically aimed at getting the family member hired, the report said.

Interior Department officials did not immediately respond to telephone and email requests for a response to the findings. Domenech could not be reached for comment.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva called on Interior Secretary David Bernhardt to fire Domenech.

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“Firing Mr. Domenech is the only serious course of action at this point – another round of ethics training is clearly just a waste of time, since it hasn’t sunk in by now,” Rep. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat, said in a statement.

Domenech, who also served under former President George W. Bush, went through two rounds of ethics training when he first joined the Trump administration as a senior advisor to then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in 2017, according to the investigation.

That training included specific admonitions against using his office “to endorse friends, relatives or persons with whom you are affiliated in a non-governmental capacity,” the report said.

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MATTHEW BROWN