Democrats Seek Criminal Charges Against Trump Interior Head

Zinke and his staff emailed Ingram multiple times, using personal email addresses, Democrats said.Bernhardt, now a lawyer in private practice, called the Democrats’ letter “a pathetic attempt by career politicians to fabricate news.”A Justice Department spokesman said the department received the letter and will review it.The lawmakers asked Garland to investigate and consider bringing criminal charges against Bernhardt or other officials.“The findings of this investigation show us yet again that the previous administration cast career staff expertise aside while they handed out federal agency decisions to Trump’s buddies and big donors on a pay-to-play basis,” Grijalva said in a statement.Porter said that “an exchange of money for a specific government action is the clearest form of corruption there is, and Americans — Democrats, Republicans and independents — share an understanding that this kind of quid pro quo erodes our democracy.”Lanny Davis, a lawyer for El Dorado Holdings, a company owned by Ingram, called the referral by Grijalva and Porter “false, misleading (and) unfair” and said it used “innuendo as a surrogate for fact.″El Dorado participated in multiple meetings with the committee, “acted in full transparency and gave full cooperation without a subpoena,″ Davis said in a statement.