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If the amount of money you spend on security is related to how important you are, then Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is a Very VERY Important Person. Pruitt’s mission to destroy the agency he heads and the environment it’s tasked with protecting has somehow led him to need to spend millions of dollars on security that previous EPA administrators did not require. There’s the 24/7 security detail that none of Pruitt’s predecessors had:
Pruitt's security detail is in the process of expanding by hiring a dozen more agents, according to a source with knowledge of the situation, as the number of threats against the agency leader increase. The incoming agents will grow the team that works in shifts to provide him around-the-clock protection, something unheard of for Pruitt's predecessors.
Salaries alone for the full team will cost at least $2 million per year, according to figures compiled by CNN from public documents. The numbers do not include costs such as training, equipment, and travel.
There’s the office security that sounds like something out of a heist movie, the challenge Danny Ocean’s intrepid team has to crack:
The agency recently made arrangements with a security vendor to have "two access control card readers" installed for his office, according to federal contracting documents reviewed by CNN. That security system, including an additional access card reader for the security office and an alarm in the office to alert agents, costs $15,780, the documents showed.
Pruitt also purchased a secure soundproof communications booth for his office at a cost of nearly $25,000, purchasing records show, even though EPA already has a similar room elsewhere in the building.
There’s the apparent paranoia that the cleaning staff is part of the Deep State out to undermine Pruitt:
Publicly released schedules show that, starting in early April, an aide to Pruitt was responsible for opening his office at 7 a.m. on weekdays for cleaning staff, rather than allowing them to enter on their own.
Pruitt’s predecessors left their office door unlocked.
It all makes you wonder just what outrageous moves Pruitt has planned next. Or maybe, taking a page from Trump’s book, it just makes him feel like a big man.