"'Secretary Zinke engaged in political activity when he wore the above-referenced socks,' Ana Galindo-Marrone, chief of the Hatch Act Unit at the Office of the Special Counsel, wrote in a Dec. 20 letter to Campaign for Accountability"
On April 17, 2019, CfA sent a letter to the Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), an anti-abortion advocacy organization, calling for the removal of businessman Robert J. Kania, Jr. from his position as treasurer of SBA List and its affiliated entities: the Susan B. Anthony List, Inc. Candidate Fund and the Women Speak Out PAC.
On April 2, 2019, CfA announced that the Office of Inspector General at the U.S. Department of the Interior confirmed it is reviewing CfA’s request for investigation into Acting Interior Secretary David Bernhardt and his relationship with his former lobbying client, Westlands Water District, an agricultural conglomerate in California.
"In a letter to the executive director of one of the groups, the Campaign for Accountability, Inspector General Mary L. Kendall wrote that her office 'received seven complaints, including yours, from a wide assortment of complainants alleging various conflict of interest and other violations by then deputy secretary of the interior, David Bernhardt.'"
On April 5, 2019, CfA again called on federal officials to investigate whether Acting Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt and his former lobbying firm, Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP, violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act and the False Statements Act by failing to disclose Mr. Bernhardt’s apparent lobbying in connection with Westlands Water District (Westlands), an agricultural conglomerate in California. New documents indicate that Mr. Bernhardt continued to work for Westlands through April 2017 despite formally withdrawing his lobbying registration on November 18, 2016.
"Bernhardt's ethics memo yesterday also happened to come on the same day the Campaign for Accountability, a nonprofit watchdog group, announced that Interior's Office of Inspector General confirmed it is reviewing a request for investigation into Bernhardt and his relationship with his former lobbying client, Westlands Water District in California."
"Several groups, including the Campaign Legal Center and the Campaign for Accountability, as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), have questioned Bernhardt’s role in the Interior Department’s push to conduct an environmental analysis of proposed changes to federal and state water projects in California. That effort could free up more water for the Westlands Water District, which serves farmers in California’s Central Valley."
"In a follow-up complaint sent to the clerk of the House, the secretary of the Senate and — for the first time — the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, the Campaign for Accountability (CfA) requested investigations of potential violations of lobbying laws and statements made to the federal government by Wheeler and Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, where he worked prior to joining EPA."
On March 12, 2019, CfA called on federal officials to investigate whether Andrew Wheeler, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), and his former lobbying firm, Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, violated the Lobbying Disclosure Act by failing to disclose an April 2017 meeting with an Interior Department official regarding the borders of Bears Ears National Monument.
Statement from Daniel Stevens, Executive Director of Campaign for Accountability, on the nomination of David Bernhardt for the position of Secretary of the Department of the Interior.