Why did Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threaten a reporter?

The inspector general of the U.S. Department of the Interior is conducting an investigation into whether the department’s Bureau of Land Management sold some 1,700 wild horses to a Colorado rancher who illegally exported them to Mexico for slaughter. According to an investigation by Politico, BLM officials would email the rancher and encourage him to buy dozens of horses, sight unseen. Advocates for the mustangs say the BLM, which is charged with protecting the horses, had to know they were being killed. Salazar threatened last week to punch a reporter from the Colorado Springs Gazette who asked him about the horses and the government’s relationship with the rancher.