HUD official quits amid Interior Department watchdog controversy

A top political official at the Department of Housing and Urban Development resigned Friday after HUD Secretary Ben Carson said she was slated to be the Interior Department’s top watchdog, apparently by mistake.

HUD spokesman Raffi Williams said late Friday that Suzanne Israel Tufts, HUD’s assistant secretary for administration, “has offered her resignation and it has been accepted.”

Carson told his staff a week ago that Tufts would leave to become Interior’s acting inspector general on a temporary basis, as first reported by The Hill. The announcement alarmed Democrats and conservationists, who felt that an ally to President Trump would be unable to provide unbiased oversight of Interior and its secretary, Ryan Zinke, who is the subject of numerous investigations by the watchdog office.

View the complete October 19 article by Timothy Cama on the Hill website here.