Interior Department emails show officials discussed circumventing statute to confirm director

The government watchdog Protect the Public's Trust published records Thursday that appear to show how Interior Department officials explored ways to circumvent a statute in the nomination process for Martha Williams as the director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service because she did not appear to have the "scientific education" required under the statute.

Before she was sworn in to lead the agency in March 2022, Williams served as Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks director and holds her law degree and bachelor's degree in philosophy.

She also served as legal counsel for Montana's wildlife department as well as the Obama administration's Interior Department. 

The Interior Department statute states: "No individual may be appointed as the director [of the Fish and Wildlife Service] unless he is, by reason of scientific education and experience, knowledgeable in the principles of fisheries and wildlife management."

The agency's emails, obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, show that officials were aware Williams did not meet the statute's requirements, but they explored how to circumvent it.

"For some time now, we’ve been told by the Biden administration that 50-year-old precedents were sacrosanct," Protect the Public’s Trust Director Michael Chamberlain said, alluding to how the Supreme Court overruled the abortion precedent set in Roe v. Wade.

"But it appears that decades of precedent, and clear statutory language are merely niceties to be cast aside when inconvenient for Secretary [Deb] Haaland’s Department. This is hardly the return to normalcy we were promised," he said. "Do not be surprised if future administrations consider this a green light to ignore this qualification for their FWS directors."

Madeleine Hubbard is an international correspondent for Just the News. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram.