As Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke blasted many within his department for being disloyal to the Trump administration’s agenda this week, the agency’s inspector general’s office continued a probe into whether officials acted inappropriately when they abruptly reassigned dozens of senior workers.
.. The reassigned workers include Joel Clement, a climate scientist who was removed from his job as director of policy analysis and reassigned to a revenue accounting position for which he has no experience. Clement became a whistleblower when he publicly complained about his switch from his longtime role, in which he assessed climate impact on Alaska Native communities.
.. “He believes . . . that the administration targeted him because he was speaking out about the danger [of climate change] to Alaska Native Communities,” said attorney Katherine Atkinson, who is representing Clement. “As a result, they labeled him as a climate guy.”.. Beyond how the reassignments were carried out — which Atkinson said violated the U.S. Code — “it’s a waste of government money to just arbitrarily move people around in the hopes that they will quit,” she said... Another staffer called the news a “shock to the system” that would require a move to Washington from a post hundreds of miles away.