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President Trump announced Saturday that Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke would be leaving his post at the end of the year.
"Secretary of the Interior @RyanZinke will leave the administration at the end of the year after serving for nearly two years," he tweeted. "Ryan has accomplished a great deal during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our nation."
Trump announced that he would announce the replacement of Zinke by the end of next week.
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Bloomberg News, which for the first time announced the resignation of Zinke, has indicated that candidates who could replace him could include David Bernhardt, MP for Zinke, as well as former Nevada Senator Dean Heller and Scott Walker, former Wisconsin governor.
Zinke, former Montana congressman and member of the US Navy, was the subject of ethics complaints related to his trip as well as a real estate transaction in his country Originally involving a foundation that he had created and the chairman of energy giant Halliburton who maintains relations with the interior.
Many media reports indicated that the Interior Ministry watchdog, Inspector General Mary Kendall, had referred this investigation to the Just Ice Department for possible charges criminal.
Zinke, 57, also raised ethical concerns when he prevented two Connecticut tribes from opening a casino and redrawing its borders to shrink a national Utah monument. Kendall's team opened a separate investigation into Zinke during his plane trip, blaming him for failing to comply with ministry regulations when he allowed his wife to ride in government vehicles, and stated that there were not enough records to determine whether Zinke's staff reassignments had violated the policy.
At a press conference held on November 7 at the White House, President Trump told reporters that Zinke's fate was in doubt. let's go back to that, and I want to study what is being said, "said Trump. "I think it's doing a great job, but we're going to look at that, and we'll probably have an idea about it in about a week."
But two days later, Trump told reporters that he had no immediate plans. "No, I will examine all the complaints," he said.
Zinke also raised the Democrats' anger at the policy he had adopted at the head of the Department of the Interior. It has reduced the boundaries protecting the natural mouments for drilling and mining. In November, he accused "radical ecologists" of being behind forest fires in California, accusing them of "burning the entire forest rather than cutting a single tree".
Zinke's departure marks the latest upheaval in the Trump administration. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Chief of Staff John Kelly and US Ambassador Nikki Haley have all left or announced their intention to leave the administration.
Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to the writing of this report.
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