Secretary Ryan Zinke rumored to be up for United Nations post

Friday, October 12, 2018  

Is Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke about to say sayonara to Indian Country?

According to the mainstream media, the leader of the Department of the Interior might indeed be going away. He's under consideration to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Fox News and Reuters reported.

The Ambassadorship will be open because Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina, is resigning at the end of the year. She has held the post since January 2017.

"Ambassador @nikkihaley is a great advocate of the US and the @realDonaldTrump foreign policy. I enjoyed getting to know her over the past two years as colleagues in the @Cabinet. She has done an incredible job and I wish her all the best," Zinke wrote in a post on Twitter on Tuesday.

Ambassador @nikkihaley is a great advocate of the US and the @realDonaldTrump foreign policy. I enjoyed getting to know her over the past two years as colleagues in the @Cabinet. She has done an incredible job and I wish her all the best.

— Secretary Ryan Zinke (@SecretaryZinke) October 9, 2018

Zinke joined President Donald Trump's Cabinet in March 2017. He has repeatedly vowed to respect tribal sovereignty in his role at the department, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Bureau of Indian Education.

But Zinke has come under fire for proposing new hurdles in the tribal homelands process, suspending the land-into-trust process in Alaska, supporting the dismantling of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah and limiting tribal involvement there, removing protections for the sacred grizzly bear and seeking to reorganize the BIA into new regions that had little to do with tribal priorities.

Still, there have been signs of change. The biggest is the recent arrival of Tara Sweeney as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. She is the first Alaska Native woman to serve in the position and the first woman in more than 20 years in that role.

Should Zinke end up leaving his post, Trump would be able to name a replacement. The nomination would be subject to confirmation in the Senate.

While that process plays out, the Department of the Interior could be led by an "acting" Secretary. Historically, that role has been taken on by the Deputy Secretary, a job currently held by David Bernhardt, who was confirmed by the Senate.

Bernhardt is familiar to many in Indian Country because of his prior service in the George W. Bush administration. According to Mother Jones, he plays a major role in decision-making for the Trump administration.

“Bernhardt knows where all the skeletons are and the strings to pull,” Joel Clement, a former official who resigned in protest of his reassignment by the administration, told Mother Jones. He characterized Zinke as “all hat, no cattle,” saying that “the real work is being done by Bernhardt.”

Ryan Zinke under consideration to succeed Haley as UN ambassador, sources say (Fox News October 11, 2018)
Dina Powell Withdraws From Consideration for U.S. Envoy to U.N.: Source (Reuters October 11, 2018)
“The Guy Doing the Dirty Work” at Trump’s Interior Department is an Ex-Oil Lobbyist Straight Out of the Swamp (Mother Jones October 9, 2018)

Ryan Zinke isn't the only corrupt official in the Department of the @Interior. Take a look at his second in command: @DOIDepSec & former oil lobbyist David Bernhardt, who Interior watchdogs are calling “the ultimate DC swamp creature.” #EndCorruptionNow https://t.co/IcRHXWnmcX

— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) October 11, 2018