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

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.

Zinke apparently never worked in the field of geology after graduating, either, going into politics and business instead. "He seems not to be familiar with modern geologic knowledge," Northwestern University professor Seth Stein told CNN. Added Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.): "I'm not sure Secretary Zinke was paying attention during those geology classes."

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