President Donald Trump , a self-proclaimed loyalty freak , found a loyal friend and unwavering supporter in former Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).

So when Hatchs office sent a letter in mid-March 2017 requesting that the Interior Department shrink the boundary of Utahs Bears Ears National Monument to free up fossil fuel-rich lands, as The New York Times revealed, the Trump administration sprang into action.

A little more than a month later, Trump signed an executive order calling for a review of more than two dozen recent national monument designations. It was clear that Bears Ears was the primary target. At the signing ceremony, Trump said hed heard a lot about the 1.35 million-acre site in southeastern Utah and how beautiful the area is. He painted the Obama administration designation as a massive federal land grab. And he boasted that it should never have happened and was made over the profound objections of the states citizens, and that he was opening the land up to tremendously positive things.

He made no mention of the five Native American tribes that consider the area sacred and jointly petitioned for the monuments creation . Instead, he thanked Hatch for his never-ending prodding .

[Hatch] would call me and call me and say, You got to do this, Trump said. Is that right, Orrin? You didnt stop. He doesnt give up. Hes shocked that Im doing it, but Im doing it because its the right thing to do.

Again, this was before former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke launched what he promised would be an objective, thorough review of recent monument designations; one he said would give all stakeholders a voice. In the end, Trump signed a pair of proclamations to cut more than 2 million acres from Bears Ears and nearby Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument the largest rollback of national monuments in U.S. history. Seemingly every action leading to that decision suggested the outcome was predetermined.