Interior Secretary Doug Burgum likes chocolate-chip cookies—preferably freshly baked and still warm.
This peculiar fact became the talk of the Department of Interior in recent weeks after his chief of staff, JoDee Hanson, made an unusual request of the political appointees in his office: Learn to regularly bake cookies for Burgum and his guests, using the industrial ovens at the department headquarters.
That request was not the only move by his team that has alarmed some Interior officials. Four people familiar with Burgum’s leadership, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told The Atlantic that Burgum was focused on his status as the leader of a minor cabinet department and that those who ran his office repeatedly made unusual demands to his employees. His office leadership once instructed political appointees to act as servers for a multicourse meal. They also dispatched a U.S. Park Police helicopter for his personal transportation. On at least one occasion, a political appointee was told to remake the cookies because the batch was subpar, according to three people.
Some of the concerns have been elevated to senior White House officials, according to the sources. One person familiar with the behavior described Burgum as “Doug the diva.” Three people said the concerns have been widely discussed among lower-level staff at the Department of Interior. Two people said political appointees in Burgum’s office have been seen crying because of the demands placed on them.
“These pathetic smears are from unnamed cowards who don’t know Doug Burgum and are trying to stop President Trump’s Energy Dominance agenda,” Interior spokesperson Katie Martin told us in a statement. “Everyone knows Secretary Burgum always leads with gratitude and is humbly working with President Trump.”
Two Interior Department officials, speaking anonymously to push back on what they say are false claims, said the cookies—which are made from store-bought, premade dough and served to guests and staff in a basket—are simply part of the hospitality the department offers to visitors. The helicopter trip, they said, was arranged by his security detail. One of these officials also pointed out that most of these complaints are from the early days of the administration, when the office was still ramping up and few political appointees were on staff.
“He’s not demanding cookies, he’s not demanding a helicopter,” an Interior Department official told us in response. “It is antithetical to diva behavior.”
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly similarly dismissed any concern when asked for a comment on this story. “Only The Atlantic could spin baking warm cookies for guests as a bad thing. Cold-hearted people!” she wrote to us in a statement. “Secretary Burgum is doing an outstanding job leading the Department of Interior.”
Burgum is not the first Trump Cabinet secretary to spark controversy inside a federal department for the way the secretary’s office is run. During Trump’s first term, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt resigned in 2018 amid at least a dozen federal investigations that included claims that he was overspending on travel and tasking federal workers to do personal work. Former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao was investigated after emails surfaced showing a federal worker had been tasked with sending Christmas ornaments to her family. And congressional Republicans investigated reports that former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke planned to spend $139,000 on replacement doors for his office. He later testified that the final cost was $75,000, and that the high price was required because of the historic nature of the building.
Before entering politics, Burgum was a successful businessman, amassing a net worth above $100 million. The former North Dakota governor nearly got the nod last summer to be Trump’s running mate, ending up on Trump’s list of three finalists. When Trump won, he was hoping for a high-profile role, such as secretary of state. Trump appointed Burgum instead to Interior, also naming him to the National Security Council at the White House and to be chair of the newly formed National Energy Dominance Council.
Larger cabinet agencies typically come with more perks for senior officials, like multiple food-service options and government aircraft for official travel. That is not the case at the Department of the Interior, which manages the National Park Service and about one-fifth of America’s land, as well as the federal government’s relationship with Indian tribes. The only restaurant at the C Street headquarters, Bison Bistro, closed during the coronavirus pandemic and has not reopened. Burgum’s Democratic predecessor, Deb Haaland, was known to periodically walk across the street to the Met Cafe for its buffet lunch.
Shortly after his confirmation, Burgum had breakfast with Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent at the Treasury headquarters next to the White House, according to three people briefed on the events. Treasury has a dedicated wait staff that can serve multicourse meals for the secretary and his guests in a private room, according to a former Treasury official. One departmental dining space, known as the “small conference room,” displays the silverware of Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first Treasury secretary.
Days after the breakfast, on February 11, Burgum’s office instructed four political appointees in the Office of the Secretary, who have no formal role in food service, to stage a similar, multicourse lunch for a meeting with Wright and Mark Christie, the head of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. His office ordered catered food, and the political appointees plated it into multiple serving courses and washed the dishes afterward. Concerns about the use of political appointees—who are supposed to be helping to run the department—to serve food to the secretary later reached the White House, two people said.
The two Interior Department officials said that because the department has no cafeteria, staff will help serve food if Burgum has guests over. Burgum’s meal with Wright and Christie was not elaborate, they said—salad, lasagna, and dessert. “We’re talking three plates, three forks,” one of the officials said, adding that it was the only time Burgum hosted lunch at the department.
On February 7, Burgum’s office ordered Eagle One, a U.S. Park Police helicopter stationed in Anacostia Park, to land at polo fields near the National Mall to transport him to Andrews Air Force Base, where he was scheduled to meet President Trump and fly on Air Force One to Florida for the weekend. The eight-minute helicopter flight from Washington to Andrews is a standard privilege for presidents, who have their own helicopter fleet maintained by the U.S. Marines. Interior secretaries typically endure the 30- to 40-minute drive to Andrews.
The Aviation Unit of the U.S. Park Police, a division of the Department of Interior, does not routinely handle VIP transport, according to a U.S. Park Police fact sheet. The blue-and-white helicopters launch to provide additional aerial surveillance during presidential and other dignitary movements, and are used for “medevac, search and rescue, high-risk prisoner transport,” and to support for law-enforcement operations.
Interior travel guidelines state that “official travel to give speeches, attend conferences or meetings, or make routine site visits” is not an acceptable justification for “mission requirement” travel in government aircraft. There is a separate category of “required use travel” that allows officials to use government aircraft for “certain specific communications, security and exceptional scheduling requirements.” Separate federal regulations require written permission from a senior legal officer for such travel.
A person briefed on Burgum’s use of the Park Police helicopter said the aircraft was requested by the secretary’s security team after concerns were raised that he might not make the Air Force One departure time after a meeting at the White House. Burgum had nothing to do with the decision to use the helicopter, that person said.
“The Secretary was slated to staff the President of the United States for a trip over the Gulf of America,” Martin told us in a statement. “When it was clear that afternoon D.C. traffic would not allow him to travel by vehicle, the decision was made to take a helicopter to ensure he arrived at Andrews on time to staff President Trump, which is a core mission of the Secretary of the Interior.”
Burgum, the two Interior Department officials added, regularly flies coach. Last Thursday, for instance, he flew on American Airlines to a fracking event in Washington County, Pennsylvania, in coach—the sort of commercial travel that is more typical, both said.
White House pool reports on February 7 described Trump arriving at 3:47 p.m. at Andrews and departing on Air Force One with Burgum on board shortly afterward. FlightAware, a company that tracks aviation movement, has no record of U.S. Park Police helicopters traveling in the Washington area on that day. But CopterSpotter, a website for the public to upload photos of helicopters they see in the Washington area, has a photograph of one of the Park Police helicopters flying near the Washington Monument at 3 p.m., shortly before Trump left the White House in his own helicopter.
Andrew Logan, an audio engineer who runs CopterSpotter and the website Helicopters of D.C., said that federal helicopters have the ability to turn off their outgoing GPS transponders, which might explain why FlightAware did not record the February 7 flight. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the Republican chair of the Commerce Committee, has been pushing federal aircraft in the D.C. region to more frequently display their transponder location after a January 29 crash between an Army helicopter not operating its transponder and a regional jet killed 67 people at Reagan National Airport.
Hanson, Burgum’s chief of staff, has told federal workers in Burgum’s office that the tradition of staff baking cookies began when he was governor of North Dakota, according to two people. She has worked for Burgum for decades, starting at his former company, Great Plains Software, before moving up to become a senior adviser to his gubernatorial campaign and the chief administrative officer for the state of North Dakota, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Burgum has also used the political appointees in his department for another purpose in recent days: stacking firewood in his office’s fireplace. At times, he has instructed his staff on the finer points of arranging logs so they won’t collapse and create noise when burning during meetings. An Interior Department official said many people in the department—from Burgum himself to the most junior staff—have helped make fires, and that if Burgum ever offered tips, it was not intended imperiously. Burgum, who worked as a chimney sweep in college, was likely just trying to be helpful, the official said.
Burgum has made some other peculiar requests of his staff. One standing request, described by two people, is that the labels get removed from water bottles before they are delivered to him. An Interior Department official said they remove the labels to avoid branding issues, especially when sharing photos on social media.
Not everyone who has worked for Burgum is concerned about the way he treats his staff. When an adviser close to Burgum over the past several years became aware of this story on Saturday evening, he proactively called us to say that, in the many hours he’s spent with Burgum, he has never seen him behave in an arrogant way. Burgum, this person told us, always carries his own bag and often replaces I in speeches with we in order to emphasize his team.
He so frequently begins meetings by expressing his gratitude for his staff or other people in the room that it’s become a running joke among his aides.
Burgum, this adviser said, is “the ultimate team guy who has a history of promoting young people,” dating back to his time at Great Plains Software.