Smoothly running machine

Interior Department officials said Thursday that they did not approve the hiring of a political appointee as the agency’s acting watchdog, calling the announcement of her move by Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson “100 percent false information.”

[...]

In an email Friday with the subject line “A Fond Farewell,” Carson wrote staff, “It is with mixed emotions that I announce that Suzanne Israel Tufts, our Assistant Secretary for Administration, has decided to leave HUD to become Acting Inspector General at the Department of Interior.”

[...]

The backtracking on Suzanne Israel Tufts’s move two days after it drew widespread scrutiny deepened questions about how and why she was supposedly chosen to lead Interior’s inspector general’s office, which is currently conducting at least four investigations into Secretary Ryan Zinke.

[...]

Top White House officials said Thursday they had not been made aware of the plan to move Tufts, a lawyer from Queens who worked on President Trump’s campaign and has served as HUD’s assistant secretary for administration since December.

“Ms. Tufts is not employed by the Department and no decision was ever made to move her to Interior,” the agency’s press secretary, Heather Swift, said in a statement Thursday.

And in a striking public rebuke of another Cabinet agency led by a close friend of Zinke’s, Swift wrote that HUD “sent out an email that had 100 percent false information in it.” She affirmed that Deputy Inspector General Mary Kendall, who has led the office for nine years, is still in the job.

[...]

The about-face came after mounting criticism by lawmakers on Capitol Hill and watchdog groups of what appeared to be an un­or­tho­dox arrangement between the agencies to bring in a political appointee to oversee Kendall.

[...]

Swift said Tufts was referred to Interior officials by the White House “as a potential candidate” for a position in the inspector general’s office. Swift did not say what position. “At the end of the day, she was not offered a job at Interior.”

[...]

[Tufts] is a former consultant who has no experience as an investigator and would have been leading one of the government’s most active inspector general offices.

[...]

“It’s a real breach of protocol to put someone who’s only qualification is political allegiance to the Trump administration.”

[...]

White House officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss personnel matters, said the move came as a surprise to them.

[...]

HUD officials did not respond to a request for comment. Tufts could not be reached.

  WaPo

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10/20:

Tufts has resigned.

What the hell went on here?