(C) Daily Montanan This story was originally published by Daily Montanan and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Final stretch of campaign brings 'whistleblower,' planned victory party in new House district – Daily Montanan [1] ['Keila Szpaller', 'More From Author', '- November'] Date: 2022-11-03 In the final stretch of the campaign, Ryan Zinke is getting clobbered from multiple directions for ethically questionable dealings, even as he announces a victory party in Whitefish. The Republican is the favorite for the U.S. House of Representatives in Montana’s new western district, according to most national pollsters, but Montana analysts have also said he’s vulnerable. The most recent jabs came this week as Democrat Monica Tranel’s campaign released a montage of criticisms from Republicans who ran against Zinke in the primary, Al Olszewski and Mary Todd. “In Washington, Ryan Zinke flew all over serving himself — thousands in taxpayer-funded private jets. So many, President Trump had enough,” Olszewski says in a campaign clip the Tranel team grabbed. The video follows up with criticism from Todd about Zinke’s “home in Santa Barbara” and being involved in a “corruption scandal” in the Trump administration. Zinke’s wife owns a home in California, and he’s frequently there. Olszewski could not be reached for comment Wednesday via email and phone, and Todd could not be reached for comment via voicemail. But questions about ethics and truthfulness have plagued former U.S. Navy SEAL Zinke since his time in the U.S. military, and more recently, through the last days leading up to the general election. Last month, a federal whistleblower traveled to Montana to talk about his experience under Zinke in the Department of the Interior. The former Congressman and once Secretary of the Interior has argued that attacks are politically motivated and the allegations are trivial. Political analyst Jeremy Johnson, a faculty member at Carroll College in Helena, said it matters to voters if politicians lie — but only sometimes. If a candidate has a sterling reputation and the lying is out of character, he said, it can hurt the politician. “It probably hurts a person less who already has a reputation for being untruthful,” Johnson said. Zinke’s reputation has shifted some since he ran for Congress in 2014, he said. In the years since he first was elected, he’s faced a number of challenges, but Johnson agreed with Zinke that some of the complaints were petty, such as one about his socks. Zinke ran afoul of a federal prohibition against using his position to influence an election by wearing “Make America Great Again” socks at Mount Rushmore in 2018 and tweeting a picture of himself, but he quickly apologized for it and asked staff to delete it when he found out it might be a violation, according to the Washington Post. Among the numerous allegations lodged with the Inspector General’s Office of the Interior Department was one about dog walking — “doggy daycare,” in Zinke’s words. The complaint said an employee resigned because Zinke made her walk his dog on the job, but the report said she left after she didn’t get a position she’d wanted. The investigation found the employee had volunteered to walk the dog — and liked doing it. Nonetheless, Johnson said the Tranel campaign is on point to use other Republicans to remind voters of their own GOP opponent’s scandals in Washington, D.C. Tranel is a lawyer and Olympic rower, and the underdog in the race. “It’s a smart strategy for Tranel to have members of Zinke’s own party say these things,” Johnson said. “It gives credibility.” (A tongue-in-cheek approval message said it stemmed from fatigue: “Team Tranel approves this message because we are tired and our boss is in her minivan out of cell service.”) Generally, Johnson said the penalty for character problems in politics has diminished in the last several decades, although it still exists. The Office of the Special Counsel issued a warning to Zinke about the MAGA socks, and the Department of Justice never prosecuted him for times the inspector general’s office found problems with his actions. But the office found ethical lapses in the course of multiple investigations during the course of several years. It said Zinke racked up a $12,375 bill for a chartered flight he could have avoided, among other unnecessary expenses; he wasn’t truthful to them about a development he had an interest in and worked on in Whitefish; and he misled them about his interactions with corporate casino lobbyists. (For example, the report on the casino deal said Zinke hosted a political consultant and casino lobbyist at his home for dinner. But the report said Zinke initially denied having talked with casino lobbyists; after investigators confronted him with conflicting information, he said if he had talked with a lobbyist, he’d probably only “cordially listened.”) Democrats argue the missteps identified by federal investigators diminish the candidate’s ability to accomplish work on behalf of Montanans — and that they’re part of a pattern that shows he’s good at working on his own behalf. Just last month in Bozeman, a federal whistleblower who resigned from the Department of the Interior under Zinke said the former secretary would have no clout to get anything done in Washington, D.C., since he was chased out by his own administration. “You’re going to have an empty seat, basically, with a cowboy hat on it,” said Joel Clement, a scientist and senior fellow of the Arctic Initiative at the Harvard Kennedy School. Clement, former director of the Office of Policy Analysis with the Interior Department, resigned after he said Zinke reassigned him in a way that undercut his ability to work in his area of expertise, climate change. At the event in Gallatin County, Clement also recalled Zinke as the first secretary to have his own personal flag. In a new tradition under Zinke, The Washington Post said a security staffer raised the banner when he was in the building to indicate his presence; his spokesperson described the move at the time as “a major sign of transparency.” Clement said when Zinke criticized workers because, by his estimation, 30 percent of them didn’t salute “the flag,” his flag, someone made an underground T-shirt sold to staff that read, “Proud member of the 30 percent.” (Clement, who made it a point to tell the audience he isn’t a Democrat, said staff are there to uphold the U.S. Constitution, not salute the secretary, and probably more than 30 percent weren’t saluting.) Cora Neumann, a Democrat who ran against Tranel in the primary, moderated the discussion with Clement, and she said Zinke had accomplished “a few good things” and came close to achieving “some conservation victories.” She pointed to the order he signed on big game migration, although she also said energy developments Zinke supports create most of the problems for those pathways. Generally, Neumann said he’s out for himself, as evidenced by the flag routine he instated: “I just keep thinking, not a Democrat, not a Republican, a Zinkian.” The Zinke campaign didn’t respond to emails about Clement’s event in Montana or a question about Tranel’s latest video with Todd and Olszewski. Libertarian John Lamb is in the race, too, and Derek Skees, listed as treasurer for the Montana Republican State Central Committee, said Lamb might be better than both Zinke and Tranel. However, he said a vote for Lamb is a throwaway, and he pushed back against the accusation Zinke has a record of doing nothing for Montanans. Skees, a conservative hardliner who has represented Kalispell in the Legislature, said he was proud of Zinke as Secretary because he cut significant grant funding and changed the application process at the Interior after an analysis found money was “almost all going to left-leaning organizations.” He also said Zinke stepping down as secretary rather than becoming a problem for Trump is a testament to his character. Just four work days before Election Day, 45 percent of people who received absentee ballots had turned them in, according to the Montana Secretary of State’s Office. The Secretary of State had mailed 498,077 and received 225,507 as of noon Wednesday. Even in the beginning of a race, few voters are undecided. However, political analyst Lee Banville with the University of Montana earlier said the challenge in tight races is whether a voter is enthusiastic enough about a candidate to fill out a ballot or go to the polls for that particular person. Skees said his quest in the western district is convincing some Republicans that just because Zinke doesn’t stand with them on all the issues doesn’t mean he isn’t worth their vote, especially compared to the “insane woman Monica Tranel.” He’s telling people the Republican tent is big. “The hard-right conservatives view him as a weak Republican, and those are the folks who might not show up to vote. And that’s the tragedy,” Skees said. 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