Senators' silence kills probe into Zinke's alleged Alaska threats

The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) is closing its investigation into Secretary Ryan Zinke’s alleged threats against an Alaska senator during an ObamaCare fight last month after the lawmaker and her in-state colleague refused to participate in the probe. In a letter to a pair of House Democrats who requested the investigation, Interior’s Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall said her office “does not believe it could meaningfully investigate the matter further” because Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, both Republicans, declined to be interviewed as part of the inquiry. “The OIG has conducted a preliminary review of this matter, including investigative and jurisdictional considerations, and concludes that further investigation would prove unproductive,” Kendall wrote to Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.). Sullivan told The Alaska Dispatch News last month that Zinke threatened to withhold Interior support for Alaska if Murkowski did not support an ObamaCare repeal bill favored by President Trump. At the time, Sullivan called the threat "troubling."...more