New Reporting and Public Documents Expose More Disqualifying Ethics Violations By Top Interior Official Karen Budd-Falen
Reporting by Public Domain Exposes More Ethics Violations by Burgum’s Third-Ranking Official Doing the Bidding of Former Clients on the Public Dime
HELENA, MT – Karen Budd-Falen has a pattern, and it started before she ever set foot in Doug Burgum’s Interior Department. The devoted anti-public land advocate and self-described “cowboy lawyer” built her career fighting to sell off public lands and gutting conservation protections on behalf of private clients. Now she’s Interior’s third-ranking official, and she’s still at it while on the taxpayer dime.
A report published today by Public Domain reveals that last June, well before her controversial ethics waiver was signed, Budd-Falen attended a meeting with officials from the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association and other ranching interests, several of whom were her former clients. Days later, she personally intervened to halt a planned release of an endangered Mexican wolf pack, emailing Fish and Wildlife Service staff to kill the transfer. The delay pushed the pack’s release past the critical June-July window agency scientists said was essential for the wolves’ survival.
“Karen Budd-Falen spent her career fighting against public lands and wildlife for narrow special interests and herself. Now she’s at Interior, and Budd-Falen is still doing her own and her clients' bidding, contrary to ethics laws and on the taxpayer dime. It’s clear she’s not fit for public service,” said Jayson O’Neill, Save Our Parks spokesperson. “If Burgum cared, he’d immediately remove Budd-Falen from public service before he and the Trump administration are implicated in her corruption.”
It fits a pattern of self-dealing that spans both Trump terms. Budd-Falen met with Lithium Americas executives while her husband held a $3.5 million water deal dependent on federal approval of the Thacker Pass mine. After her meeting, Interior approved the mine. She never disclosed the profit on four separate financial forms. She was caught on camera admitting she crafted federal grazing policy to benefit “places like Northern Nevada where my father-in-law’s place is,” and her family’s ranch now holds grazing leases on a quarter-million acres of federal land. Rather than face consequences, she received a new ethics waiver expanding her authority over the very policies she’s been exploiting.
To speak with Save Our Parks spokesperson Jayson O’Neill, email jayson@focalpointstrategygroup.com.
Additional Resources:
Questions Pile Up at Doug Burgum’s Interior as Ethics Scandals, Cronyism, and Costly Failures Mount
Top Official's Disclosure Failure Underscores 'Naked Corruption' of Trump Interior Department
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