{"id":10212,"date":"2020-12-17T10:13:15","date_gmt":"2020-12-17T15:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=10212"},"modified":"2020-12-17T10:21:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-17T15:21:47","slug":"secretary-of-the-interior-david-bernhardt-department-of-the-interior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/2020\/12\/17\/secretary-of-the-interior-david-bernhardt-department-of-the-interior\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt (Department of the Interior)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"davidbernhardt\"

Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt participates in the winter roundtable of the Western Caucus Foundation in Fort Worth, Texas, on December 5, 2020. Photo: U.S. Department of the Interior<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt<\/a> has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to news reports.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a> was the first to report the diagnosis on December 16, 2020. A spokesperson told the paper that Bernhardt “will continue to work on behalf of the American people while in quarantine.”<\/p>\n

Bernhardt oversees the Department of the Interior<\/a>, the federal agency with the most trust and treaty responsibilities in Indian Country. The Bureau of Indian Affairs<\/a> is part of Interior, along with the Bureau of Indian Education<\/a> and the newly-created Bureau of Trust Funds Administration<\/a>, which has taken over most of the functions of the Office of the Special Trustee for American Indians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During the George W. Bush administration, Bernhardt initially served as a counselor to then-Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton. He later became Solicitor at the department, a position for which he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n

Bernhardt returned to Interior for the Trump era, first serving as Deputy Secretary<\/a> under former Secretary Ryan Zinke. He was confirmed as Secretary<\/a>\u00a0in April 2019, following Zinke’s departure in December 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CImD-bVjAYp\/<\/p>\n

Bernhardt’s COVID-19 diagnosis, incidentally, comes just a week after Zinke returned to Interior headquarters in Washington, D.C., for the unveiling of his official portrait<\/a>, which will hang in the Secretary’s office at the department. Bernhardt attended the event.<\/p>\n

While in Washington, Zinke and his wife also attended an event at the White House<\/a>, according to a post on his wife’s social media.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the Donald Trump administration, Bernhardt is set to depart in the coming weeks. Democratic President-elect Joe Biden will be inaugurated on January 20, 2021.<\/p>\n

Biden has not yet announced his pick for Secretary of the Interior.<\/p>\n

Additional Coverage<\/strong><\/p>\n

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt tests positive for coronavirus<\/a> (The Washington Post December 16, 2020)<\/p>\n

Interior Secretary Bernhardt tests positive for COVID-19<\/a>\u00a0(E&E News December 16, 2020)<\/p>\n

Interior Secretary David Bernhardt tests positive for Covid-19<\/a>\u00a0(CNN December 17, 2020)<\/p>\n

Interior chief latest official to test positive for virus<\/a>\u00a0(The Associated Press December 17, 2020)<\/p>\n

Top Trump officials sidelined after exposure to coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0(CBS News December 17, 2020)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration official who oversees the department with the most trust and treaty responsibilities has tested positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10217,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,7,1],"tags":[51,50,751,106,38,107,37,754,755,705,753,752,750],"class_list":["post-10212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-institutions","category-updates","tag-bia","tag-bie","tag-btfa","tag-david-bernhardt","tag-dc","tag-doi","tag-donald-trump","tag-gale-norton","tag-george-bush","tag-joe-biden","tag-lola-zinka","tag-ost","tag-ryan-zinke"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/17\/davidbernhardt-scaled.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10212"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10221,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10212\/revisions\/10221"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}