Real professional grifters should be outraged by having Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt described as a grifter. The man has no finesse, no subtlety, and he keeps getting caught. Luckily for Pruitt, the person who could penalize him as he keeps getting caught is Donald Trump, and Trump has no problem with his people breaking ethics rules and running up huge bills for questionable purposes.
The most recent revelations about Pruitt’s behavior come thanks to two of his top aides (one former, one current) talking to congressional investigators. Former associate administrator for the EPA”s policy office Samantha Dravis said that Pruitt had asked her to help find his wife a job—and not just any job. He wanted his wife, a former school nurse, to be given a $200,000 a year job at the Republican Attorney Generals Association, which he used to head. Not only that, but:
She also told the investigators that she had cautioned Mr. Pruitt that he would have to disclose his wife’s income on federal financial disclosure documents, and that he responded that he would create a limited liability corporation, according to the two people with knowledge of her interview, both of whom asked not to be identified because of the continuing investigation.
It’s not clear if this was before or after Pruitt’s attempt to use his position to score his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise failed.
Pruitt also asked Dravis and another staffer to help him break a lease (not the one where he paid $50 a night to stay in a lobbyist-owned apartment), and both she and his current chief of staff, Ryan Jackson, said that they’d tried to push back on his desire to fly first-class or in private jets.