Post Politics Now: Biden returns to Washington with news on Ukraine aid, student debt
Today, President Biden returned to the White House from a vacation in Delaware. Before arriving, he announced nearly $3 billion in additional weapons and equipment for Ukraine to help continuing efforts to fend off a Russian invasion that began six months ago. Later Wednesday, Biden plans to detail news on another front: the cancellation of up to $10,000 in student debt for millions of American borrowers.
In primaries in New York and Florida on Tuesday, Democratic voters chose established candidates for Congress and governor in several closely watched intraparty contests, advancing well-known officeholders aligned with party leadership over rivals who sought to steer the party in a different direction. Voters in Oklahoma also went to the polls for runoff elections.
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The latest: Trump’s interior secretary lied to investigators in casino case, watchdog finds
Former interior secretary Ryan Zinke, the leading contender to win a new House seat representing Montana this fall, lied to investigators several times about conversations he had with federal officials, lawmakers and lobbyists about a petition by two Indian tribes to operate a casino in New England, the department’s watchdog said in a report released Wednesday.
According to Lisa Rein and Anna Phillips, investigators with Inspector General Mark Greenblatt’s office concluded that when questioned about his talks with Interior attorneys and others outside the department, Zinke and his then-chief of staff failed to comply with their “duty of candor” as public officials to tell the truth, the report said:
Investigators found that Zinke and his chief of staff “made statements to OIG investigators with the overall intent to mislead them.”A letter from Zinke’s attorney’s office included in the report pushed back on its substance, calling the report “distorted and misleading” and questioning the timing of its release. Zinke’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The watchdog began its investigation in 2017 to determine whether Zinke had been improperly influenced by Nevada Republicans and MGM Resorts International, a competitor that opposed the planned casino. The Mashantucket Pequot and Mohegan tribes wanted to open a gambling facility in East Windsor, Conn., a request that required federal approval. Zinke neither granted nor denied the petition; instead, he sent it back to the tribes. His action became the subject of intense scrutiny at Interior and the White House during President Donald Trump’s first months in office.Over the course of the investigation, the inspector general’s office shifted its focus from the decision in the casino case to the truthfulness of Zinke and his chief of staff’s statements.
Read more about this investigation and what it could mean for Zinke’s political future here.
