Official mired in ethics probe

A senior Trump administration official misused his office for private gain by capitalizing on his government connections to help get his son-in-law hired at the Environmental Protection Agency, investigators said in a report obtained by The Associated Press.

The Interior Department’s inspector general found that Assistant Interior Secretary Douglas Domenech reached out to a senior EPA official in person and later by email in 2017 to advocate for the son-in-law when he was seeking a job at the agency.

Investigators said Domenech also appeared to misuse his position to promote a second family member’s wedding-related business to the same EPA official, who was engaged at the time.

The AP obtained the report detailing the investigation in advance of its public release.

It’s the second finding of ethical violations in six months against Domenech, the agency’s assistant secretary for insular and international affairs. Investigators in December found that he broke federal ethics rules by twice meeting with his former employer, a conservative Texasbased policy group, to discuss legal disputes between the group and the agency in early 2017.

The contacts between Domenech and the EPA official began at a concert at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts in Virginia in fall 2017.

Domenech, three family members including the son-in-law and the senior EPA official had received free tickets through the office of then-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, the report said.

The son-in-law was not named or otherwise identified in the report, but two sources identified his relation to Domenech. One identified the son-in-law as Eric Frandy.

Frandy married Domenech’s daughter, Emily, a Republican staffer on Capitol Hill, in 2012, according to the couple’s online wedding registry. The report referred to him as “family member 1.”