Article snippet: The Interior Department's internal watchdog says that charter flights taken by Secretary Ryan Zinke did not violate any laws, but that the department could have avoided some of the cost in an interim report published Tuesday. The department's inspector general found that three flights on private or military planes taken by Zinke generally followed the relevant rules and were all approved by ethics officials in advance. But the report found that the cost of at least one of the trips, a more than $12,000 flight from Las Vegas to Montana, could have been avoided. In a letter to Deputy Secretary David Bernhardt last month the inspector general's office wrote that "we question the $12,375 cost for a chartered flight to give a 12-minute speech with no nexus to the DOI." In his response, Bernhardt said he was concerned about that "glib" suggestion and that the report did include all the relevant information, although the department has made some changes to its approval process. The report also found that Interior Department reimbursed the White House $52,000 for two flights that Zinke didn't take on Air Force One and Air Force Two. The inspector general found that the secretary was invited to travel with the president and vice president and the department was told they still had to pay for the flights even though his invitation to the event was revoked. The department spent an additional $100,000 for four flights on Air Force One that Zinke actually took. Zi... Link to the full article to read more