WASHINGTON — A political appointee who just this week was on track to lead the Interior Department’s inspector general’s office resigned Friday from the federal government, according to an administration official.
Suzanne Israel Tufts was scheduled to be interviewed Friday morning for another inspector general position elsewhere in the government, according to a person with knowledge of the interview. But she did not show up for the appointment.
Her departure comes as President Donald Trump’s administration quickly scuttled an arrangement to make Tufts acting Interior investigator amid media reports and scrutiny from Capitol Hill lawmakers.
Tufts, an attorney from Queens, N.Y., who worked on Trump’s campaign, was serving as assistant secretary for administration at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She had not been at work for at least two months, according to three people with knowledge of her absence, but was still on the payroll.
A week ago, HUD Secretary Ben Carson announced to agency staff that Tufts would be assigned to Interior. Top White House officials then said they didn’t know about the plan. The apparent arrangement between the Interior Department and HUD raised questions about how and why a political appointee with no experience handling government investigations was chosen to lead such an active investigative office.
Mary Kendall, who has served as Interior’s deputy inspector general for nine years but was not confirmed by the Senate to the top spot, is conducting at least four investigations into Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s conduct.
On Thursday — with mounting criticism by Capitol Hill Democrats and other groups of what appeared to be an unorthodox arrangement between the agencies to assign a Trump loyalist to oversee Kendall — the administration backed off.