Loyalists, Lobbyists and Industry Insiders — the New Political Appointees at the Interior Department
As civil servants get purged, President Trump doles out patronage at DOI
As the Trump administration purges non–partisan civil servants from federal bureaucracies across Washington, it is simultaneously filling those agencies with MAGA loyalists, revolving-door lobbyists and industry insiders. At least that’s the story at the Interior Department, the massive federal agency that oversees our national parks and historic battlefields, manages the Endangered Species Act, administers vast energy resources and more.
The White House is dishing out patronage jobs at Interior to MAGA stalwarts and DOGE operatives who have little apparent experience with land management or environmental policy. Other positions at the department are being awarded to seasoned Republican operatives and allies of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Still others are going to long-time industry insiders, some who have previously worked at DOI.
Public Domain obtained the names of some 40 political appointees that the new administration has either placed or proposed to place in department roles. They will take over an agency reeling from mass firings and imminent layoffs, where career civil servants feel besieged, abused and denigrated, according to numerous sources inside the agency. As these appointees take the reins, they will likely pursue policies meant to rollback environmental protections while promoting resource extraction on federal lands. The new Interior Department leadership has moved quickly to open up Alaska and the Outer Continental Shelf to more oil and gas drilling, while pushing for more mining and timber harvesting on federal lands. It has at the same time sought to weaken key environmental laws, like the National Environmental Policy Act, which gives citizens a voice in major federal actions that affect the human and natural environment. And it is contemplating a plan to lease or sell off federal land for real estate development.
These are the names of the political appointees involved in this new era at DOI. The names below, which were obtained from sources within DOI, are subject to change as the administration shuffles more appointees into permanent positions. We will continue to build it out as we gather more information in the days and weeks ahead. The Interior Department declined to comment for this article.
The DOGE Operatives:
A secretarial order in early March granted Tyler Hassen the delegated authority of the Assistant Secretary for Policy Management and Budget position at the Interior Department. That means Hassen, a former oil industry executive turned DOGE operative, is effectively serving as the agency’s chief financial officer. Hassen is a key DOGE figure embedded inside the Interior Department. As Public Domain first reported, he was involved in a publicity stunt in California in which the Trump administration falsely sought credit for increasing federal water supplies to farmers in the state. To read more about Hassen you can find our past coverage here.
Katrine Trampe is another DOGE operative at DOI, where she is serving as an advisor to the Interior secretary. Trampe uses the title Comtesse in connection with her family's aristocratic European heritage. Trampe, like Hassen, is an Ivy League graduate. According to E&E News, Trampe has been in charge of reviewing and canceling contracts at DOI.
DOGE operative Stephanie Holmes has also burrowed into the Interior Department, where she is an advisor to Burgum and exercising the delegated authority of the department’s chief human capital officer, a top HR job normally reserved for non-partisan civil servants. Holmes, a human resource consultant and labor lawyer, previously worked at Oklo, a nuclear energy start up with ties to both Sam Altman and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Industry Insiders and DOI Veterans:
In January, President Trump nominated Katharine MacGregor to Interior’s deputy secretary — a job she held during the first Trump administration. MacGregor is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and has been a Republican operative in Washington D.C. since at least 2007. During her first stint at the Interior Department, she worked behind the scenes to advance the interests of major energy companies. During her hiatus from government work, she marched through the revolving door and landed a job as vice president of environmental services for NextEra Energy, an energy behemoth and one of the world’s largest electrical utilities. She was previously a lobbyist at the firm Alcalde & Fay.
William Doffermyre is Trump’s nominee to be Interior solicitor. As the agency’s top lawyer, he will have immense sway over the entire breadth of DOI’s policies and programs, including the power to issue legal opinions that shape the department’s philosophy and practice. Doffermyre comes to DOI from Energy Transfer, a major oil and gas transportation and storage company.
President Trump has nominated Leslie Beyer to be Interior’s next assistant secretary for land and minerals management. An oil and gas industry veteran, Beyer has served on the board of directors of Forum Energy Technologies, a global oilfield products company. She also serves on the board of directors of Patterson-UTI, a drilling services company.
Thomas Baptiste will rejoin DOI as a senior advisor to the deputy secretary. He served at DOI during Trump’s first term.
Laura Rigas, a long-time conservative apparatchik, will be DOI’s new White House liaison. She worked as the department’s communications director in 2017 and 2018, and served in a variety of other roles during the first Trump administration.
Karen Budd-Falen, a prominent lawyer and rancher, has long been a central figure in the so-called “sagebrush rebellion” movement that for decades has opposed many facets of federal land management in the West. She is an outspoken critic of key environmental laws like the Endangered Species Act. Budd-Falen worked as an Interior Department lawyer during the first Trump administration. She is joining Trump 2.0 as associate deputy secretary at Interior. In late March, she was granted the authority of the deputy Interior secretary, filling the role as MacGregor awaits her confirmation.
Brittany Kelm is is slated to be an advisor for external affairs in the Interior's Office of Land and Mineral Management, which administers the agency’s onshore oil and gas program, among other duties. A woman of the same name is listed on LinkedIn as a corporate relations advisor for fossil fuel giant Shell. A Brittany Kelm also shows up as a lobbyist for Shell in the Senate’s lobbying disclosure database. Public Domain reached out to Kelm for comment, but received no reply.
Adam Suess is slated to join DOI as its new principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management. A person with the same name is a lawyer and fossil fuel industry insider, most recently serving as vice president for government and external relations at REH Company, formerly known as the Sinclair Companies, a major player in oil and gas. Public Domain reached out to Suess for comment, but received no response.
Deirdre Kohlrus is coming onboard as the director of Interior’s Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs. A woman with the same name is listed as the vice president for government affairs at the Energy Workforce and Technology Council, a major energy industry trade group. She worked at the Department of Energy during Trump’s first term.
Gregory Zerzan, a senior adviser to the Interior secretary, is currently operating at DOI with the delegated authority of the solicitor. Zerzan was the principal deputy solicitor during Trump’s first term and went on to work for Fisher Phillips, a major law firm.
Matthew Schafle is the new director of congressional and legislative affairs. An individual of the same name is listed as a National Rifle Association lobbyist in Senate disclosure forms from 2024. Prior to his time at the NRA, Schafle worked for Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee. Public Domain reached out to the Schafle and the NRA for comment, but received no response.
Eva Vrana is returning to the Interior Department as the deputy assistant secretary for policy, management and budget. Cline served in the previous Trump administration, according to a ProPublica database.
Gregory Wischer has been selected as the Interior Department’s new deputy assistant secretary for land and mineral management, a position with immense authority over mining and energy policy on public lands. Wischer comes to the new role from Dei Gratia Minerals, a mining industry consultancy.
Burgum Allies
JoDee Hanson is serving as the Interior Department’s chief of staff. A longtime ally and aide to Doug Burgum, she served as a senior advisor and treasurer on his various political campaigns and was the chief administrative officer of North Dakota from 2016 to 2024. Prior to her tenure in government, she worked for the Kilbourne Group, Burgum’s Fargo-based real estate development firm.
Tami Reller is slated to be a senior adviser at the department. A woman of the same name is a long-time Burgum ally from North Dakota, and was the chair of Best of America PAC, which supported Burgum’s 2024 presidential campaign. Reller is also a healthcare executive, most recently working as the executive chair of Duly Health and Care, a financially troubled, private-equity-backed physicians group in the Midwest, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Andrea Travnicek has been nominated to serve as the department's assistant secretary for water and science, a role that will have her overseeing key agencies like the Bureau of Reclamation and the U.S. Geological Survey. Travnicek worked in the Interior Department during Trump's first term and then moved to North Dakota to serve under then-Governor Burgum, where she led the state’s Department of Water Resources, among other roles.
Campaign Staffers, MAGA Loyalists and More:
Kailyn Mahoney has been named the principal deputy communications director at the Interior Department. She was previously the director of media affairs for both the Trump-Vance transition team and for the Republican National Committee. Mahoney is a former producer at Fox News, where she worked from 2019 to 2021.
Paris Curry is slated to join DOI as a special assistant to Interior’s chief of staff. A person of the same name was a former staffer for the National Republican Congressional Committee, worked on the Trump campaign in 2024 and helped organize the president’s inauguration in January. Public Domain reached out to Curry for comment, but received no response.
Alec Faggion will be the department’s new deputy White House liaison, according to our sources. A person of the same name, who appears to be a political operative from Michigan, maintains an X account with numerous posts about Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. Public Domain reached out to Faggion for comment, but received no reply.
Kelly Rael is joining DOI as the special assistant to the assistant secretary of Indian Affairs. A woman of the same name was the Trump campaign’s Native American outreach coordinator in Arizona. She posts frequently on X and other social media platforms about Trump and the Interior Department.
Nicholas Duber is slated to join DOI as a special assistant at Interior’s Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs. A person of the same name was a Trump campaigner who worked in Michigan during the last election. His Twitter account also has numerous posts about Interior Secretary Burgum.
The Trump administration has nominated William Kirkland, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, to be the agency’s next assistant secretary of Indian Affairs. A Republican operative from Georgia, he worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and served in the White House during the current President’s first term in office.
Murray Miller is the new deputy director of Interior’s Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, where she is focused on the House. Murray appears to be coming to DOI from the House of Representatives, where a woman of the same name works for Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), a long-time opponent of conservation protections.
James Nelson is coming to DOI as a special assistant at the Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs.
Jarrod Agen will be a senior counselor to the secretary.
Kathryn Martin is slated to join the Interior Department as its communications director.
Kristin Repass will be the agency’s director for scheduling and advance.
Other individuals named as DOI political appointees by our sources include Andrew Mott, Peter Lake, Carter Boyce, Scott Davis, Tyler Kellog, Andrew Williams, Katherine Gonzalez, and Samuel Nelson. We will work to verify these and other names in the weeks ahead. We are seeking via public records requests the financial disclosures and resumes for all DOI political appointees. If you have information about one or more of these political appointees, please reach out to us here or on Signal at: jtoby.06