Interior Department Withheld Trump Nominee Documents Ahead Of Confirmation

Ahead of Interior Secretary David Bernhardt's Senate confirmation hearing in March 2019, political appointees blocked the public release of documents about the nominee, the agency's internal watchdog concluded.

Trump administration officials are accused of having "orchestrated a coverup to protect Secretary Bernhardt during his confirmation" and renewed a demand that the Department of Justice open a criminal investigation into whether Daniel Jorjani, the Interior Department solicitor, perjured himself when questioned about the FOIA policy during his May confirmation hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The inspectors said Tuesday that the IG report shows Jorjani provided false information under oath.

Jorjani, a former Koch brothers adviser, has shown himself a Trump administration loyalist, once telling colleagues that "our job is to protect the secretary" from ethics probes and negative media coverage, as HuffPost first reported.

The inspector general's report notes that soon after President Donald Trump nominated Bernhardt in February 2019 to replace scandal-plagued outgoing Secretary Ryan Zinke, then-counselor to the secretary Hubbel Relat "directed staff" from the department's solicitor and FOIA offices to "temporarily withhold documents related to Bernhardt," including communications to and from him, in response to an FOIA lawsuit.


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GOP:

Gaslight
Obstruct
Project

It's easy to see why Trump keeps parroting "fake news."

It's what criminals do.

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I was right.

We will need an election and a new president to punish this.

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"One of the reasons why propaganda tries to get you to hate government is because it's the one existing institution in which people can participate to some extent and constrain tyrannical unaccountable power." Noam Chomsky.

"Accuse the other

of what you are guilty."

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GOP:

Gaslight
Obstruct
Project