Watchdog questions Interior Department appointee’s below-market-rate loan, tree spiking incident
- March 14, 2022
Juliette Fairley, Legal Newsline
WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline) – Documents obtained by a federal watchdog group show that the Department of Interior (DOI)’s communications team may have knowingly assisted an appointee in making false statements after a Senate confirmation hearing.
“What we were looking at in our Freedom of Information Act request was what had been the conversations that had happened within the department during those times,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust.
“If the allegations are true that Tracy Stone Manning provided false statements to Congress, that could constitute a serious ethics violation on her part,” Chamberlain told Legal Newsline. “If anyone within the department had knowingly assisted her and participated in her making false statements that could constitute ethics violations on their part as well.”