Who Is Lolita Zinke? Ryan Zinke’s Wife Allegedly Misused Government Funds

The Department of Interior (DOI) denied any wrongdoing Monday after documents emerged saying the staff was forced to spend office hours coordinating the travel of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's wife Lolita Zinke.

According to a Politico report, documents acquired by the liberal watchdog Western Values Project shed light on the potential misuse of government resources when Lolita traveled with her husband on official business.

The documents also revealed that Lolita established a profile that outsized other typical Cabinet secretary's spouses, including making decisions on who were to be invited to a town hall hosted by the conservative Young America's Foundation for her husband on April. 17.

She joined Zinke for tours of national parks and meetings with government officials during the week and even accompanied them for a private tour of the Reagan Ranch galleries, the documents said.

The staffers in the department also had to accommodate a last-minute request for her to join Zinke at an official dinner with Alaska's governor, Bill Walker. They only found out about her attendance at the dinner and that she planned to stay longer than expected through an aide to Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), who was present at the trip.

In the emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act , Director of Scheduling and Advance Russell Roddy wrote in an email to colleagues: "I have heard that Mrs. Zinke was now maybe not going to fly out from Fairbanks Sunday morning … so, I asked Annie if she happened to talk to Mrs. Zinke about her plans. She said Mrs. Zinke said she was now going to head to Byers Lake and Anchorage with RKZ and fly out of Anchorage on Tuesday."

"UGH!" Roddy added, "we have all kinds of planes, trains and automobiles manifests to now scramble with."

Lolita, who is an active member of conservative politics was a member of the Hispanic and women’s outreach committee in President Donald Trump’s campaign. After the election, she joined his Veterans Administration landing team, Heavy.com reported. In September she became the chairwoman for the Senate campaign of Montana Troy Downing, who is hoping to unseat Sen. Jon Tester next year.

According to a biography on the Republican National Committee website GOP.com, Lolita is a native of Santa Barbara, California, and married Ryan in 1992.

She had faced criticism earlier for accompanying her husband on a California trip after she posted a photograph on Twitter from Gov. Jerry Brown's office and accompanied Zinke to meetings with DOI regional staff.

The interior department told Politico that Lolita paid for her own travel. However, government affairs lobbyist Craig Holman said that spousal travel often sent the wrong message, especially if the spouses themselves pay for it. "Spousal travel, especially when paid for by the spouse, suggests that the trip may have less to do with official duties and more resembles a family vacation partially paid for by taxpayers," Holman said.

Meanwhile, according to the Washington Post, DOI spokeswoman Heather Swift said the department "incurred no expenses due to Mrs. Zinke’s presence" at the dinner with Alaska’s governor.