Zinke's Legal Troubles Are Far From Over

When 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 Zinke’s actions are likely to continue, according to Delaney Marsco, ethics counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group. And if those inquiries turn out badly for him, 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,” Marsco said.

The most damaging could be a Justice Department examination of a real estate deal in Montana involving Zinke’s family and a development group backed by David J. Lesar, chairman of Halliburton, the giant energy services company.

If the department finds that Zinke willfully used his official position to influence the deal and benefit himself, he could be prosecuted under a federal conflict of interest law and, if convicted, face a sentence of up to five years in prison and a $50,000 fine for each violation. The attorney general has discretion over whether to bring the charges.

Before President Donald Trump announced his departure on Twitter, Zinke, 57, had been a man accustomed to winning. As a politician, he had leapt up the Republican pole, rising from freshman state senator to Cabinet secretary in a matter of eight years. Friends in Montana have long said they expected him to run for governor in 2020.

The ethics inquiries may now block that path — or they may not.

Through a spokeswoman, Heather Swift, Zinke declined to be interviewed for this article.

He has, however, told a number of significant players in Montana politics recently that he is not planning to run for governor. Some of them speculate that he may be waiting for the investigations to run their course. Others say they think he may be more interested in staying in Washington than in returning to state politics after his resignation takes effect at the end of the year.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.