The new acting head of the National Park Service, Paul Daniel Smith, once let the billionaire owner of the Washington Redskins football team chop down 130 trees on protected park land.
Redskins owner Dan Snyder, whose riverfront mansion abutted the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park, desired a better view of the Potomac River. As a high ranking special assistant to the park director at the time, Smith helped deliver this vista for the wealthy businessman.
SEE ALSO: National Park Service advisory board members resign in protestInterior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Smith's appointment on Wednesday.
“I can think of no one better equipped to help lead our efforts to ensure that the National Park Service is on firm footing to preserve and protect the most spectacular places in the United States for future generations," Zinke said.
As acting director of the National Park Service, Smith will now oversee 417 national park sites, 20,000 employees, and a budget of nearly $3 billion. It's unknown if President Trump plans to nominate Smith as a full-time director of the agency, which requires Senate confirmation.
In 2006, the Park Service Inspector General's Office investigated Smith's role in allowing the removal of 130 protected trees from public land. The Inspector General's report concluded that Smith "... Inappropriately used his position to apply pressure and circumvent NPS procedures" on behalf of Snyder, the wealthy Redskins owner.
Hikers speaking to ranger on a trail in Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Credit: NPS Further, the government agents assigned to the investigation reported that Smith gave them two inconsistent, contrasting accounts about the decision and thus "contradicted himself."
Smith escaped punishment, and was soon appointed to lead Colonial National Historic Park in Virginia. Now, Smith finds himself as head of the entire park system.
The story, however, doesn't end there. The park ranger that notified Park Service officials about the improper tree-cutting said he faced years of "reprisals," according to reporting by The Washington Post. The ranger, Robert M. Danno, said he was stripped of his gun, accused of theft and "reassigned to issue picnic permits in a park in Northern Virginia with four picnic tables."
Tellingly, the Park Service confirmed with The Washington Post that the agency had "settled" with Danno over the matter and had given him a new job.
The new acting director, Smith, will now oversee thousands of rangers like Danno, whose job it is to ensure protected resources are not chopped down by anyone -- including billionaires.
