The EPA doesn’t have the task of promoting oil and gas. It doesn’t have the task of promoting anything outside the U.S. And yet, Scott Pruitt and his team of personal guards just got back from sampling the couscous at an extended Moroccan vacation.
The purpose of the trip sparked questions from environmental groups, Democratic lawmakers and some industry experts, who noted that EPA plays no formal role in overseeing natural gas exports. Such activities are overseen primarily by the Energy Department and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
Pruitt took along seven aides and an undisclosed number of staff from his protective detail. The group included four political aides, including Samantha Dravis, associate administrator of the Office of Policy, and senior advisers Sarah Greenwalt and Lincoln Ferguson, as well as one career official, Jane Nishida, principal deputy assistant administrator of the Office of International and Tribal Affairs.
The “undisclosed number” of bodyguards could be as many as 30, since Pruitt just added 12 more. That’s another $2 million in salaries alone, before you add on training, equipping, and flying them to Morocco for all-you-can-eat pastilla. It’s not clear how many of Pruitt’s staff are employed as food tasters.
Like all Pruitt events, the news about his Moroccan adventure was only made public after his return, because Pruitt refuses to publish his schedule in advance out of “security concerns.” And Pruitt got special permission to upgrade his flights to business class, at a cost of several thousand dollars per ticket, also out of “security concerns.”
Meanwhile, back at home Pruitt has demonstrated his obsessive paranoia not just with his ever-growing staff of bodyguards, but with his determination to make sure no one ever overhears a word he says.
The EPA paid $3,000 in March to Edwin Steinmetz Associates to do a “sweep for covert/illegal surveillance devices” in Administrator Scott Pruitt’s office at the agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters, documents provided to The Hill show.
The bug sweeps are on top of Pruitt’s custom made cone-of-silence which allows him to talk without being overheard. None of which makes the least bit of sense. Scott Pruitt is not only a public servant, he’s a public servant with a very domestic agenda. No other EPA official has ever felt any compulsion to ask for any of this. Just what is Pruitt hiding?
What possible justification can the man in charge of enforcing the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act at an agency where there is almost no classified information have for putting in something literally called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility?
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is known for mandating note-free meetings, he's the only administrator to have requested his 24/7 own security detail and now he's about to have his own sound-proof booth.
The EPA is spending close to $25,000 to construct a secure space for Pruitt within the agency, according to government contracting records first obtained and reported by the Washington Post.
Scott Pruitt is doing … something. Something that requires that no one take notes. Something that requires that his office be swept for bugs. Something that requires he have a sound-proof booth in his office. And that’s just the start.
Mr. Pruitt, according to the employees, who requested anonymity out of fear of losing their jobs, often makes important phone calls from other offices rather than use the phone in his office, and he is accompanied, even at E.P.A. headquarters, by armed guards, the first head of the agency to ever request round-the-clock security.
These are precautions aren’t just unusual. They are insane. No EPA chief has ever had anything like these requirements. No president has ever had anything like these requirements. No director of the CIA has anything like these requirements.
To support his continually expanding ranks of personal guards, Pruitt ignored a hiring freeze and budgetary limits, even though the enforcement budget of the EPA was being severely cut and scientists were being forced out. If you’re wondering, Pruitt’s personal security now costs about 63 percent as much as it costs to guard the Pope—and one of the two is working to cut that cost.
This isn’t caution. If Republicans are genuinely concerned that someone in Washington is planning a coup, the guy who is obsessed with secrecy, meeting with foreign leaders for no apparent reason, and building a personal army might be a place to start.
If you’re wondering about those other folks we know went to Morocco, Samantha Davis is an attorney whose previous work involved helping Republican attorney generals attack environmental laws. Sarah Greenwalt and Lincoln Ferguson were ferried to the EPA by Pruitt from his office in Oklahoma where they were involved in several of his own scandals, and Jane Nishida actually has some environmental experience (including working for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, which Pruitt and Trump defunded).
