By Matt Volz ASSOCIATED PRESS
HELENA – Former
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has closed his congressional campaign account and
given nearly all of the fundraising cash that was left to a charitable
foundation he started and his wife now runs.
Federal
Election Commission reports show that Zinke, a former Republican U.S.
representative from Montana, terminated his House campaign fundraising
account earlier this month.
The last
transaction is a Dec. 8 payment of $11,594 to the Great Northern Foundation.
Zinke
founded that nonprofit organization to maintain a park in Whitefish, his
hometown. He is no longer on the foundation’s board, but his wife, Lola, is the
president of the foundation, previously known as the Great Northern Veterans
Peace Park Foundation.
Zinke told “The
Associated Press” in a phone interview on Dec. 13 that it was time to close the
fundraising account, that not a lot of money was left in it and it was “absolutely
appropriate” to give the fundraising cash to an organization his family runs.
“I’m not
worried about appearances because you do right and fear no one,” he said. “I
can’t think of a better place for it to go than a place I helped found where
kids can go and sled.”
Brendan
Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center said campaigns can give money to charities
as long as the funds don’t provide any benefit to the candidate or his family.
“If neither
Zinke or his wife are getting a salary or financial benefits, it’s probably permissible,”
Fischer said.
Zinke said
his family is the only donors to the foundation, which maintains the Great
Northern Veterans Peace Park. The money would likely go toward those
operations, he said.
Politico
first reported the Zinke campaign’s donation to the foundation.
The Great
Northern Foundation is the same organization involved in a land deal in 2018
with the chairman of Halliburton, an energy services company that did business
with Interior when Zinke was secretary.
The
foundation allowed Chairman David Lesar to use land for a commercial
development adjacent to the park.
That
prompted an inquiry by the Interior Department’s inspector general. Zinke said
there was nothing illegal or inappropriate about the deal and the news media
twisted an agreement to provide better access to sledding into “an illicit oil
deal.”
Construction
on the Lesar’s commercial development has not begun.
