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A housing and urban development official implicated in a controversy involving HUD Secretary Ben Carson and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has resigned, a HUD spokesman said Friday.
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The Interior Ministry said Thursday that Carson had spread "false information" in an email announcing that Suzanne Israel Tufts, appointed head of the HUD, would become the internal watchdog of the Interior. , raising the question of whether the Trump administration was trying to undermine Zinke's investigations.
Democrats and surveillance groups complained after an email sent Friday by Carson to HUD staff, obtained by ABC News, said Tufts, deputy secretary of the HUD administration, was leaving to become an acting Acting Inspector General.
On Friday evening, HUD spokesman Raffi Williams wrote to the press: "Tufts, the Assistant Secretary, has offered her resignation and her candidacy has been accepted and Secretary Carson thanks her for her services to the administration and We wish him the best of success. "
No other details have been provided. Attempts to reach Tufts were unsuccessful.
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The monitoring groups had joined the Democrats to ask if Tufts, as a political member with no specific experience of government oversight, should be appointed to a position allowing him to cancel ongoing investigations on Zinke.
Interior spokeswoman, Heather Swift, said in an email on Thursday that many reports of Tufts' appointment to the position of President of the Office of the Inspector General in the Interior were wrong.
"This is a classic example of media taking hasty conclusions before knowing all the facts," Swift said in an email.
"The White House offered Ms. Tufts the opportunity to become a potential candidate at the Inspector General's office and ultimately she was not offered a job in Interior," said Swift. The exact timing however was unclear and Swift did not immediately respond to a request for details.
J.David Ake / AP, FILE
The White House, which appoints inspectors general and can reassign senior officials, has not answered questions.
A spokeswoman for the Office of the Inspector General of the Interior said that they had not received any information on a possible staff change and that Swift had declared that the company was not in charge. Assistant Inspector General Mary Kendall was still in post.
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