President Trump’s second Interior secretary was cleared by a federal watchdog of any impropriety as regards to his work on a federal water project and the department’s ethics office was found to have conducted a sufficient review of possible conflicts of interest, after allegations indicated otherwise.
The Interior inspector general office looked into allegations involving David Bernhardt, who served as Interior secretary from April 2019-January 2021, and his work with the California Central Valley Project, which is a big federal water project that the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation operates. The allegations included that he violated the Trump administration’s ethics pledge and federal conflict of interest rules through his work on issues involving the project while secretary and acted improperly to assist his former client, the Westlands Water District (a California public agency that supplies water to 700 farms), receive a contract to receive the water.
“We didn’t substantiate any of the allegations regarding improper conduct by Mr. Bernhardt,” the Interior IG said in a report issued Jan. 19. “We also concluded that the evidence didn’t support the complainants’ allegations regarding the [Interior ethics office] review of Mr. Bernhardt’s potential conflicts of interest.”
With reference to the ethics pledge, which was a 2017 executive order from President Trump, Bernhardt didn’t violate the section that banned political appointees from working on matters involving their former employer or clients for 2 years after their appointment because “Bernhardt represented the [Westlands Water District] as an attorney, the [water district] is a state agency, and— as such—is excluded from the definition of ‘former client’ under the ethics pledge,” said the report.
Also, Berhardt didn’t violate restrictions on political appointees who were registered lobbyists from working on dealings that they lobbied on inside two years before the date of their appointment, the probe found.
“Bernhardt’s participation in [the California Central Valley Project] water issues didn’t violate the Ethics Pledge or the Standards of Ethical Conduct since the matters wherein he participated weren’t ‘particular matters’ as that term is defined under the ethics rules, and, thus, these rules weren’t implicate,” said the report.
As for the ethics office, the IG found that its review of Bernhardt’s potential conflicts of interest was sufficient and followed standard review practices, following various allegations in regards to the quality of their review. Also, the IG didn’t find any evidence that Bernhardt tried to coerce or intimate the Interior’s alternate designated agency ethics official,” which is the first deputy to the designated agency ethics official.
Lastly, the IG office didn’t find any evidence that Bernhardt had any involvement within the Westlands Water District getting a good and everlasting contract or that the contract lacked sufficient oversight provisions.
The report says Bernhardt declined to participate in a voluntary interview with the IG office “without special conditions that were inconsistent with our interviewing policies and practices.” The IG sent the report back to the present Interior secretary, Deb Headland, for any actions deemed appropriate. The Interior Department declined to comment to Government Executive on the report.
The report “reflects what we have now at all times known — that former Secretary Bernhardt has conducted himself with professionalism and integrity each within the private sector and while serving on the Department of the Interior,” Bernhardt’s attorney Danny Onorato told Government Executive in an announcement on Monday. “The report completely vindicates Secretary Bernhardt” and “confirms that the allegations against Secretary Bernhardt were meritless and that he fully complied with all his ethical and legal obligations from day one in all his term of public service.”
Meanwhile, Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, a conservation and advocacy organization in search of to guard land, water and communities within the American West, said in an announcement, “this report is a step-by-step handbook for future swamp creatures who need to help their clients while skirting their ethical obligations to the American people.”
The water deal has been subject to legal challenges, and, as The Recent York Times, reported Westlands Water District, has “disputed allegations that it received special treatment.”
This was not the one time Berhardt has come under review by the Interior IG, which said in April 2019 it received seven complaints “from a large assortment of complainants alleged various potential conflict of interest and other violations” by Bernhardt from when he was deputy secretary.
In May 2022, the IG office issued a report based on its review of allegations that he violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act before joining the Interior Department as deputy secretary in 2017 by continuing to work on legislative matters for a “water district” (which just isn’t named within the report, but was identified by news outlets as Westlands Water District) after he deregistered as a lobbyist in November 2016.
“Based on the evidence we obtained, we concluded that the conduct we identified, standing alone, didn’t show that Mr. Bernhardt acted as a lobbyist inside the meaning of the statute after deregistration,” said the report. “In arriving at this conclusion, nevertheless, we encountered plenty of limits to our ability to acquire information.”
Bernhardt’s predecessor, Ryan Zinke, who’s now a sitting member of Congress, was also subject to numerous inspector general and other investigations. For example, last yr, the IG said he didn’t comply together with his ethics obligations.
On the time of the report’s issuance Zinke was running for Congress and his campaign said the report was “Biden administration led” (although the Interior IG Mark Greenblatt, was nominated by Trump in 2019) and contained “false information.”