Ryan Zinke has claimed to be a geologist at least 40 times — but he's literally not

Ryan Zinke.
(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has claimed to be a geologist at least 40 times since he was appointed to lead the agency, even though he is not, and has never been, a geologist, CNN reports. That minor detail hasn't stopped him from using his nonexistent geology career to justify his decisions at the Department of the Interior: "Florida is different in the currents — I'm a geologist — it's different in geology," he told Breitbart News earlier this year in an interview about offshore drilling, for example.

Zinke did study geology at the University of Oregon, although he was attending on a football scholarship and he has claimed he picked his major without any thought. "I studied geology as a result of closing my eyes and randomly pointing to a major from the academic catalog, and I never looked back," he writes in his autobiography.

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Jeva Lange

Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.