Upon taking office, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke looked into redesigning the department’s flag and making it bigger, emails surfaced by the Huffington Post on Tuesday show.
Zinke started inquiring about making the changes just one week after he became the department’s secretary, according to the Huffington Post. In an email one week after Zinke took office, an Interior Department staffer said that Zinke would be able to make the department’s flag and the interior secretary’s flag bigger, so long as they are not larger than the American flag that flies atop the building, according to an email obtained by the Huffington Post. The staffer said it was unclear whether Zinke could change the flags’ design, per the report.
As secretary, Zinke has started a new tradition of raising a secretarial flag atop the department’s Washington, D.C., headquarters when he is in the building, and raising the deputy secretary’s flag when Zinke is out of town.
He has also redecorated his office in the Interior Department with the heads of an elk and a bison mounted on the wall, the Huffington Post reported. He also brought in a taxidermy grizzly bear and bobcat, per the Huffington Post.
Zinke is one of several cabinet leaders to come under scrutiny for his spending, particularly on air travel. He used military and private planes to attend events in Montana and the Caribbean islands.
