{"id":15550,"date":"2021-10-19T18:44:58","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T22:44:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/covid19\/?p=15550"},"modified":"2021-10-19T18:47:04","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T22:47:04","slug":"office-of-the-inspector-general-u-s-department-of-the-interior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/2021\/10\/19\/office-of-the-inspector-general-u-s-department-of-the-interior\/","title":{"rendered":"Office of the Inspector General (U.S. Department of the Interior)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"U.S.

Headquarters of the U.S. Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C.<\/p><\/div>\n

Summary: Former Interior Senior Official Did Not Violate the Financial Conflict of Interest or Ethics Laws<\/h2>\n

Report Date: September 23, 2021<\/p>\n

Report Number: 20-0492<\/p>\n

Source: Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of the Interior (doioig.gov\/reports\/investigation\/summary-former-interior-senior-official-did-not-violate-financial-conflict)<\/a><\/p>\n

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Note from Indianz.Com<\/h4>\n

The “former U.S. Department of the Interior senior official” referenced in the report from the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of the Interior is Tara Sweeney, who served as the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs during the Donald Trump administration. She was at the <\/i>center of controversy<\/a> over the prior administration’s decision to distribute COVID-19 funds to Alaska Native corporations, including the one where she served as a high-ranking executive.<\/i><\/p>\n

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The OIG investigated allegations that a now-former U.S. Department of the Interior senior official may have violated Federal ethics laws and the Federal ethics pledge under Executive Order 13770. The claims were based on the senior official\u2019s involvement in determining eligibility for Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds. These allegations were raised given the senior official\u2019s former employment and stock ownership. We did not substantiate the allegations. The senior official left Federal service in 2021.<\/p>\n

We concluded that the senior official did not violate the Federal financial conflict of interest statute, 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 208. This criminal statute provides that an executive branch employee is prohibited from participating personally and substantially in any particular matter in which the employee knows that they, or someone whose financial interest is imputed to them, have a financial interest, if the particular matter will have a direct and predictable effect on that financial interest, unless the employee obtains a written waiver or qualifies for an exemption.<\/p>\n

We found that the senior official participated personally and substantially in determining the methodology for allocating CARES Act relief to a discrete and identifiable class of persons, which is considered a \u201cparticular matter\u201d under 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 208. We also concluded that the senior official knew of two personal financial interests that would potentially benefit from disbursement of CARES Act funds\u2014personal stock and a family member\u2019s client. We found, however, that the senior official did not violate 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 208 with respect to the personal stock because the senior official qualified for a statutory exemption and had a written waiver with respect to this stock. Regarding the family member\u2019s client, we found that the senior official\u2019s participation in the particular matter did not have a direct and predictable effect on the senior official\u2019s imputed financial interest in the family member\u2019s client under governing law.<\/p>\n

We also found that the senior official did not violate the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch\u2014specifically, the extraordinary payments or impartiality regulation\u2014or paragraph 6 of the Federal ethics pledge. For a violation to have occurred, the senior official must have participated in a specific party matter, as that term is construed under the relevant guidance, involving the senior official\u2019s former employer or the family member\u2019s client, which we concluded the senior official did not.<\/p>\n

This is a summary of an investigative report<\/a> we issued to the Secretary of the Interior.<\/p>\ndoi-oig-20-0492<\/a>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of the Interior released a summary of an investigative report into a former Donald Trump administration official.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2646,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[71,390,107,37,480,219],"class_list":["post-15550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-institutions","tag-ancs","tag-cares-act","tag-doi","tag-donald-trump","tag-oig","tag-tara-sweeney"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/doi.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550","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=15550"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15555,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15550\/revisions\/15555"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/covid19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}