MINOT — This morning my inboxes have been full of messages from readers and friends linking me to
about former Gov. Doug Burgum’s tenure as secretary of the Interior.
Burgum has been in the headlines a lot recently because of the reflecting pool imbroglio, and his apparent role in
withholding evidence from federal prosecutors
indicating that the problem was shoddy contracting work done by President Donald Trump’s cronies and not alleged vandalism perpetrated by Americans who were, until just recently, facing criminal charges.
The Politico piece details a lot of angst from a lot of unnamed sources who are either current or past employees of the Department of the Interior. It’s a bit of a pile-on. Burgum has led that department as an absolute Trump loyalist, which isn’t so good, but he’s also shaken things up in some ways that probably aren’t as controversial as longtime federal bureaucrats would like you to believe.
One of the accusations is that Burgum is using the Department of the Interior in ways that benefit the oil and gas industry. The flip side to that might be that past administrations used the agencies to try and frustrate and confound that industry. What are and are not undue concessions to private businesses is probably in the eye of the beholder.
A man named Tony Irish, who was an employee of the Interior Department for more than two decades, accuses Burgum of showing “disdain for the rank and file” in the agency. Which can mean a lot of things. Not everyone who angers the bureaucracy is doing a bad job.
Still, there are anecdotes about Burgum and his team using private communications apps to avoid a public-facing paper trail, demanding a new secure communications apparatus closer to Burgum’s office when one already existed in the same building, and there’s a mention of the cookies affair. That’s a reference to a report from last year about Burgum’s people asking Interior Department staff to
bake him fresh cookies using the agency’s industrial ovens.
None of it is flattering for Burgum, and it’s not the least bit surprising that we’re seeing this sort of story in the national news media given that Burgum and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro are in a knife fight over the reflecting pool drama.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Pirro allies were pitching stories like this about Burgum to D.C. journalists. That’s the way this game works. Which isn’t a defense of Burgum. It’s just an acknowledgment of reality.
What people are asking me this morning is whether Burgum could be on his way out.
My answer? Almost certainly not.
Yes, Burgum has behaved shamelessly in a number of demonstrable ways that have disgraced himself and his office, but we are living in a political era when shamelessness is a virtue. Shamelessness in service to Donald Trump, in particular, is how you make sure that Trump will never fire you.
Don’t get me wrong. Trump will absolutely stuff Burgum under a bus if he perceives that move as advantageous to himself. The president demands absolute loyalty from his followers, even though he’s not loyal to anyone but himself.
But consider the situation.
Pirro’s prosecutors went into court and undermined President Donald Trump’s lies and delusions about the reflecting pool. Pirro has blamed Burgum for this, saying he withheld exculpatory evidence that, once finally turned over to the Department of Justice, made prosecution impossible.
But Burgum, meanwhile, has held the president’s line. Even as said evidence has become a matter of court record, he’s maintained the “it was vandals” falsehood, as has President Trump.
Outside of Trump world, Pirro might deserve some praise for abandoning her typical posture of obsequious bootlicking to tell the truth about something. Inside Trump world, however, it’s the bootlicking that matters, and Burgum, to his shame, has kept his tongue planted firmly on President Trump’s Oxfords.
Burgum’s job should be to serve the public, but in reality he has a constituency of one, and that one person doesn’t care how many cookies the secretary orders from staff, or how much time he spends avoiding federal records laws, or how ticked off the Department of the Interior’s bureaucracy is.
As long as Burgum keeps the shoes shined, he’s golden.
