Ryan Zinke’s Legal Troubles Are Far From Over

President Trump announced on Saturday that Ryan Zinke was resigning as interior secretary after a troubled tenure.Credit: Ryan David Brown for The New York Times

Ryan Zinke’s time in the Trump cabinet is ending, but his legal troubles are likely far from over.

When Mr. Zinke was forced to resign as interior secretary on Saturday, he joined a line of officials who have left the Trump administration under a cloud of ethics inquiries. But the investigations into Mr. Zinke’s actions are likely to continue, according to Delaney Marsco, the ethics counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group. And if those inquiries turn out badly for him, Mr. Zinke still faces the threat of criminal penalties that could hobble his political future.

“It’s not a Get Out of Jail Free card to just quit,” Ms. Marsco said.

View the complete December 16 article by Julie Turkewitz on The New York Times website here.