In my old conservation news at http://www.forwolves.org/ralph/stories.html I repeatedly referred to J. Steven Griles Assistant Secretary of Interior as “ethically-challenged.” Griles was number two at the Dept. of Interior, behind Secretary of Interior Gale Norton.

It appears Griles is now in real trouble. He has been told by federal investigators that he is a target in the investigation of lobbyist Jack Abramoff’ (now behind bars) and the web of corruption he spun.

Now that the Democrats are the majority, congressional oversight (investigation of executive branch agencies) is now longer suppressed, and it is expected that numerous other Dept. of Interior activities and personnel will be investigated for their legality.

The Department of Interior houses the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and many more agencies and programs related to our public lands and conservation.

Story Ex-Interior Deputy a Target in Abramoff Probe. By Susan Schmidt. Washington Post Staff Writer

Sourcewatch on J. Steven Griles

 
About The Author

Ralph Maughan

Dr. Ralph Maughan is professor emeritus of political science at Idaho State University. He was a Western Watersheds Project Board Member off and on for many years, and was also its President for several years. For a long time he produced Ralph Maughan's Wolf Report. He was a founder of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition. He and Jackie Johnson Maughan wrote three editions of "Hiking Idaho." He also wrote "Beyond the Tetons" and "Backpacking Wyoming's Teton and Washakie Wilderness." He created and is the administrator of The Wildlife News.

One Response to Ex-Interior Dept Deputy a Target in Abramoff Probe

  1. kt says:

    It is interesting that just a day or two ago, Bush withdrew the names of the three potential Circuit Court nominees that, somehow, even in the depths of the depravity and republican domination of the past few years, had been stopped. One of those was William Myers, the fomrer INterior department Solicitor, who according to Friends of the Earth, spent 90 percent of his time meeting with industry out to destroy the public lands?

    I wonder????? If Griles gets in trouble, if he will start talking about Myers? Myers is now in Boise, working for cattle grazing interests, AND the mountain top removal wind farms on BLM lands in critical sage grouse habitats industries … and who knows what else …

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‎"At some point we must draw a line across the ground of our home and our being, drive a spear into the land and say to the bulldozers, earthmovers, government and corporations, “thus far and no further.” If we do not, we shall later feel, instead of pride, the regret of Thoreau, that good but overly-bookish man, who wrote, near the end of his life, “If I repent of anything it is likely to be my good behaviour."

~ Edward Abbey

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