By SUZANNE DOWNING
Aug. 7, 2026 – Politico published a sprawling, roughly 2,700-word attack on Interior Secretary Doug Burgum Friday, portraying the former North Dakota governor and technology executive as an arrogant, secretive manager presiding over what Politico describes as a dysfunctional federal agency.
For Alaskans who have watched Burgum methodically and successfully reverse years of Biden Administration restrictions on resource development in the 49th state, the description is difficult to recognize.
The article, published Aug. 7 under the headline “Inside Doug Burgum’s rocky tenure at Interior,” uses a recent dispute between Burgum and US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro as the opening for a much broader indictment of his leadership.
Pirro has accused Interior officials of withholding information from prosecutors investigating alleged vandalism at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. According to court filings, prosecutors later learned that at least some of the damage may have resulted from faulty installation work rather than vandalism.
That inter-agency disagreement is legitimate fodder for a reporter. But Politico uses it as the hook for an expansive collection of old personnel complaints, Washington gossip and allegations from former employees who largely remain unnamed.
Eight former Interior officials and five industry lobbyists spoke to Politico. Many were granted anonymity on the grounds that they feared retaliation. Those anonymous sources accuse Burgum’s team of fostering a “toxic” workplace, disregarding career employees, using disappearing Signal messages, shredding documents, and avoiding written records.
The story does not cite an inspector general’s finding, criminal investigation or other official determination establishing systematic violations of federal recordkeeping laws. Interior categorically denied several of the allegations, including claims that Burgum used personal email for government business or requested construction of an additional sensitive compartmented information facility, known as a SCIF.
Interior spokeswoman Katie Martin called the accusations “anonymous and false attacks” contradicted by the department’s record.
“The only culture of paranoid secrecy is inside the heads of those stricken with TDS,” Martin told Politico, using the abbreviation for “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
The White House also stood firmly behind Burgum.
President Donald Trump “has tremendous respect” for the secretary and considers him “one of the most valuable members of his Cabinet,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy also said that the Politico article did not line up with his own experience with Burgum.
“Every interaction I’ve had with Secretary Burgum from when he was governor of North Dakota through his tenure as Secretary of the interior, I have found the Secretary to be nothing but positive, hard-working, and focused on getting things done for this country and Alaska. The Secretary in the staff interact with our staff very frequently to ensure that the president’s executive order is implemented. Again, what was written about the Secretary is not my experience or that of my staff,” Dunleavy said.
Breaking: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum transfers 2.1 million acres to Alaska in major statehood win
Politico devotes substantial space to an unsubstantiated claim that Burgum accepted Interior as a “consolation prize” after supposedly seeking other Cabinet positions.
It recounts complaints about his longtime chief of staff, JoDee Hanson, including an anecdote from The Atlantic magazine about political appointees being asked to bake chocolate chip cookies for Burgum and his visitors.
One of the few named critics is Tony Irish, who spent more than 20 years at Interior and left last year. Irish accused Burgum of combining “arrogance with an utter lack of curiosity or humility” and showing “disdain for the rank and file.”
Politico gives readers little context about Irish’s current position. After leaving Interior, he joined Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, a law-fare organization that has repeatedly challenged Trump administration policies on public lands, staffing and environmental regulation. It’s part of the environmental litigation industry.
The Politico article also cites a roughly 14% reduction in Interior’s workforce as evidence of an agency in trouble.
Yet those reductions were not an unforeseen collapse. They were part of the Trump administration’s publicly announced effort to reduce the federal bureaucracy through buyouts, early retirements, and government-efficiency initiatives.
Politico lists several officials who have departed, but its own reporting complicates the narrative that they fled because of Burgum.
Tyler Hassen, who led Interior’s DOGE-related reorganization, called Burgum “an outstanding leader.”
Former congressional affairs director Matt Schafle described working for Burgum as “the privilege of a lifetime.”
Jake Tyner, a former deputy assistant secretary, said he “thoroughly enjoyed” the experience. Several others declined to criticize Burgum at all.
Those statements are included in the article, but with the length of the piece as it is, they are buried beneath the more sensational claims from anonymous former employees.
The most glaring omission for Alaska readers is Burgum’s policy record.
Since taking office, Burgum has made Alaska one of the central pieces of the Trump administration’s energy-dominance agenda. Interior has reopened 1.56 million acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge coastal plain to potential oil and gas development, restored access to nearly 82% of the 23-million-acre National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska and reinstated federal permits needed to advance the Ambler mining road.
Burgum also signed the King Cove land exchange, advancing the community’s decades-long effort to construct an approximately 11-mile road to the all-weather airport at Cold Bay. The road is intended to provide more reliable emergency medical access for residents who currently depend on dangerous air and marine transportation.
Interior has moved to lift longstanding federal land withdrawals that prevented Alaska from completing its land selections and has advanced Alaska Native Vietnam-era veterans’ land allotments. Burgum has also publicly supported the proposed Alaska LNG project and presented Alaska’s natural gas, oil and mineral resources as matters of national and economic security.
In March, Interior conducted the first oil and gas lease sale in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska since 2019. The sale brought in more than $163.6 million for 187 leases covering approximately 1.3 million acres — the highest revenue ever generated by an NPR-A lease sale. Alaska is entitled to nearly $82 million of those receipts. The Interior Department reported the complete lease-sale results here.
Burgum’s department has also reversed the Biden-era NPR-A rule, which restricted future development, and approved an updated management plan reopening most of the reserve to leasing. The Bureau of Land Management reported that it issued more than 6,000 federal and Indian drilling permits in 2025, 63.7% more than during the comparable period under the Biden administration.
Burgum targets ‘no-use’ land policy with rollback of Biden BLM rule
In October, Burgum traveled to Washington with Alaska officials to complete major actions on King Cove, Ambler and ANWR. Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the announcements “historic for Alaska,” saying the Trump administration was delivering on promises made to the state. Interior’s announcement detailed the King Cove exchange, Ambler permits, ANWR decision and veterans’ allotments.
Politico gives those measurable accomplishments only passing treatment. Its references to expanded oil and gas leasing and high national park visitation appear mainly through Interior’s rebuttal, not as evidence independently weighed against the allegations of dysfunction.
That imbalance is what makes the article read less like an examination of Burgum’s tenure and more like a leftist hit piece. For Alaska, the more consequential measure is what Interior has actually done.
On ANWR, NPR-A, Ambler, King Cove, state land entitlements and Alaska LNG, Burgum has moved policies and projects that had been delayed, restricted or blocked for years.
That may explain why critics of Trump’s smaller-government and energy-development agenda may be unhappy and why Politico needed nearly 2,700 words and a platoon of anonymous sources to portray successful execution of that agenda as failure.
