A senior Interior Department official was described as a ‘predator’, harassed at least three female subordinates and told one he wanted to ‘get you naked and show you what it’s like to be with a real man’, internal government documents claim.
According to a report of the investigation obtained through a Freedom of Information request by DailyMail.com, management knew about his alleged sexual misconduct and did nothing about it.
The staffer who worked in the Southwest regional office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), but whose name is being protected by the government, told one of the accusers she ‘was not too old for him to put her over his knee and spank her’, according to the report.
One of the women also said that he pulled down the front of her shirt to ask if she was wearing a bra and another claimed he put his hand up her skirt.
He told another staffer that women with ‘big breasts’ got away with things because of how they looked and described another woman as a ‘big heifer’.
An investigation carried out by the Interior Department’s OIG found that managers knew about his alleged sexual misconduct and could have acted sooner to address it.
However, the Interior Department, led by Secretary Ryan Zinke, has refused to reveal his name, despite persistent problems with sexual harassment.
A senior Interior Department official described as a ‘predator’ harassed at least three female subordinates and told one he wanted to ‘get you naked and show you what it’s like to be with a real man’, internal government documents claim. The Interior Department headquarters in DC are pictured
Another woman said he became ‘creepy’ during her time in the agency and described him as a ‘predator’.
She also said he yelled at her constantly and would ask her ‘what was up her a**’, causing her to leave his office and cry.
When the accused was interviewed by Interior investigators, he denied most of the allegations against him, but later admitted that he could have made some inappropriate remarks.
The accused is believed to have since left his post, but it is not known whether he faced any disciplinary action.
His name was redacted in the report and the Interior Department refused to identify him. A spokesman told DailyMail.com they don’t comment on personnel matters.
It is another scandal involved the Interior Department. Secretary Zinke is facing an ethics investigation, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs has faced a litany of allegations of harassment.
The investigation into the Southwest BIA employee by the Interior Department OIG began on October 30, 2017, under Zinke, after they received allegations the official had sexually harassed his direct subordinate at the BIA.
The woman told investigators that she should take off her clothes and let him touch her and, on other occasions, allegedly put his hand up her skirt and pulled down the front of her shirt, the report states.
The employee also claimed she had hugger her and kissed her ‘briefly’ on the lips around 15 times since 2009, when she began working for him.
She said, according to the report, that she would regularly tell him it made her feel uncomfortable and she told him to stop.
He would often make these alleged advances when the rest of the staff had gone home for the day.
In addition to the ‘touching’, the woman claimed he had made almost 50 inappropriate remarks to her over five years.
The staffer who worked in the Southwest regional office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), but whose name is being protected by the government, told one of the accusers she ‘was not too old for him to put her over his knee and spank her’, according to these documents
The slew of comments included one he made during a meeting in his office in June 2017: ‘All I wanna do is get you naked and show you what it’s like to be with a real man’.
When she told him the comment was inappropriate, he responded by saying that all he wanted was for her to ‘have a good experience’.
She also claims he told her five or ten times that she wasn’t too old for him to put her over his knee and spank her.
In October 2017, she said she was tired of his comments and that he needed to stop.
One of the women said he told her to stop wearing a beige or cream skirt to the office because he could see her underwear.
Another woman said the official would give her a ‘side-to-side’ hug a couple of times a month, pat her on the back and tell her she was doing a good job – which made her feel uncomfortable.
However she never complained about his conduct because she was ‘intimidated’ by him, the report states.
During subsequent interviews about the investigation, the official insisted that he never touched anyone in the ‘manner alleged’, but admitted that he had ‘probably’ hugged her when he was pleased.
He also said he had a ‘zero tolerance’ for sexual harassment and would ‘never’ sexually harass anyone.
When asked if he would have sexually perused one of the complainants, he said ‘she’s not my type’.
He said one of the women once offered to massage his head at the end of the day when he had a bad headache.
The door to office was open and he stopped it when he realized it was inappropriate, he told investigators.
Four current and former BIA employees who worked directly with the accused says he never touched them or spoke to them inappropriately.
This is one of many cases of harassment that has plagued the Interior Department in the last two years The cases prompted Secretary Zinke to change the department’s sexual harassment policy.
It is another scandal involved the Interior Department, whose Secretary Ryan Zinke (above) is facing an ethics investigation, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, that has faced a litany of allegations of sexual harassment
According to an Interior Department study released in March, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, an agency staffed mostly by American Indians, experience more harassment than other Interior agencies.
In April, 2018, Zinke wrote a lengthy letter to Interior staff addressing the need to combat sexual harassment in the department.
It read: ‘In December, I told you that, during my tenure as Secretary, we had begun taking a more aggressive stance against employees who engage in misconduct, including taking action against senior leaders for harassment or other inappropriate misconduct.
‘I have made it clear to my management team that we have to take decisive action to hold employees accountable for misconduct. That decisive action includes removing employees when necessary.
‘Since last December, agency management has been following my lead by aggressively tackling the harassment problem through discipline.
‘My management team has also encouraged the Office of the Inspector General to open investigations into other claims that were brought to our attention. I want you to know that discrimination, harassment, and intimidation will find no quarter under my command.
‘Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt and I also directed that each Bureau develop an action plan to address its own specific harassment-related issues.
‘Since that time, we have worked with Bureaus to achieve this goal and have finalized a new, comprehensive anti-harassment policy for the Department.
‘The policy enshrines our commitment to providing a work environment free from harassment by ensuring that appropriate officials are notified of, and can properly stop, harassing conduct. It also holds employees accountable at the earliest possible stage, before the conduct rises to the level of illegal harassment.
‘The requirements laid out in the policy for both employee conduct and manager responsibilities take strong steps toward rooting out harassment at all levels of the Department.
‘Overall, my philosophy has been that “one-size-fits-all” ends up working for no one. Instead of a top-down approach, we solicited individual Bureau plans; we took this approach because we recognize that different Bureaus face different challenges. Employee feedback was critical in developing our final product.
‘To ensure that we effect real, lasting change, we will continue to monitor each Bureau’s efforts, so we can hold everyone, from senior leaders on down, accountable.
‘This is a long-overdue culture change at Interior.’
‘It is not enough to simply say that we want things to change. Past leaders have done that, only to watch as the problem persisted. By contrast, we have already taken a number of actions to back up our words on this topic.’