Interior IG probes VIP trips, tells agency to back off

The Department of the Interior inspector general has begun a review of senior Obama administration officials using a vacation lodge in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. Earlier this month, the IG for the department stepped in and requested that the National Park Service back off its own investigation, according to a memorandum obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Greenwire.  In the Nov. 6 memo to NPS Director Jon Jarvis, Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall said her office would be conducting a review of his agency's "management and operation" of the park's Brinkerhoff Lodge. That review "will include an examination of management policies and practices associated with the operation of the Lodge, to include identifying what guests have used the Lodge without payment and for what purpose." Kendall also asked for NPS to hand over to the IG any documents that agency officials had collected in their own investigation of the lodge's use. In addition, she requested that the agency suspend its probe into the matter...more