President Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp” was mostly about the class of politicians and lobbyists, and it’s debatable just how much headway he’s making there. But part of it pertained to a bureaucracy where there often seems to be no accountability for unacceptable behavior.
The highest-profile promises in this regard had to do with the scandal-plagued Department of Veterans’ Affairs, where bureaucrats have stolen, cheated and retaliated against whistleblowers with impunity. But there are other departments equally needing a cleanup.
The Washington Post’s Lisa Rein notes that President Trump’s new interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, will immediately have the opportunity to deal with a high-profile case of sexual harassment in his agency. A senior official, Tim Lynn, has been accused by six different female co-workers (some of them subordinates) of inappropriate behavior that would get nearly any private-sector employee fired on the spot, and nearly any private-sector employer sued. One of the accusers told the inspector general that in addition to unwanted touching and sexual comments, he allegedly retaliated against her when she rejected his advances and reported him to a superior by “criticiz[ing] her work in a conversation with another executive” in the department.
Nor is this case the only recent one of egregious misconduct at Interior. The problem is serious enough that it came up during Zinke’s confirmation hearings. He pledged to take a “zero tolerance” approach. That sounds great, but it also echoes the promises of his predecessors. Deputy inspector general Mary Kendall testified before Congress last year that “[w]e see too few examples of senior leaders making the difficult decision to impose meaningful corrective action and hold their employees accountable.”
Zinke explicitly promised to “stamp out” this problem. He has an early opportunity to demonstrate how serious he is.
