When you work in the Trump administration and you are accused of using taxpayer money to fly on private planes—as several Trump officials have been in recent weeks—there are a few ways to respond. If you’re Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who’s being investigated for a #daytrip to Lexington, Kentucky, that was conveniently timed with the solar eclipse, you come back with the bizarre explanation that you know your travel was aboveboard because only losers in middle America cared about the eclipse. If you’re former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, you say it was inappropriate, you grovel, you pledge to repay a fraction of the amount of money you spent, and then you resign. If you’re White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who is said to have hopped a few flights with Price, you say nothing and hope things will blow over. And if you’re Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, you characterize any blowback as total B.S. and go about your day.

According to the Associated Press, on Wednesday, Zinke called the criticism he’s gotten in the wake of reports he’s taken $20,000 worth of private jets since March “complete and utter bullshit.” And he responded similarly to a Politico report released Thursday alleging he’d met with donors and political groups while on government-funded trips—a violation of the Hatch Act:

Republican donors paid up to $5,000 per couple for a photo with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke at a fund-raiser held during a taxpayer-funded trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to documents reviewed by Politico—raising questions about his habit of mixing official government business with political activism. . . . Ethics watchdogs say Zinke is combining politics with his Interior duties so frequently that he risks tripping over the prohibitions against using government resources for partisan activity.

Zinke has said all his actions have obeyed the law, dismissing concerns about his travel as “a little B.S.”

At least one of Zinke’s former staffers disagrees—climate scientist Joel Clement, who was reassigned to an accounting job in June in what he says was an effort to oust him from the D.O.I., wrote a scathing letter accusing his boss of “play[ing] fast and loose with government regulations to score points with your political base.” “You and your fellow high-flying Cabinet officials have demonstrated over and over that you are willing to waste taxpayer dollars,” he concluded.