Scott Pruitt is a one man law-breaking, ethics shredding, environment smashing dynamo who has demonstrated an unprecedented ability to spit in the public eye. In just the last week, it’s been revealed that Pruitt has been staying at the swanky home of an energy lobbyist in one DC’s toniest areas, while paying the princely sum of $50 a night—an amount that has purchased for Pruitt the run of the entire place, including guestrooms for visitors. While enjoying his cheap and modest digs, Pruitt just incidentally approved the pipeline that client was working on.
The Environmental Protection Agency signed off last March on a Canadian energy company’s pipeline-expansion plan at the same time that the E.P.A. chief, Scott Pruitt, was renting a condominium linked to the energy company’s powerful Washington lobbying firm.
The townhouse served more purposes than just being a place for Pruitt to secretly meet with energy lobbyists, and for energy lobbyists to support his good work. Because that kind of blatant in-your-face bribery and collusion would just not be enough.
The lobbyist-owned townhouse that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt rented for relatively small nightly sums also served as a hub for Republican lawmakers hoping to raise money for their congressional campaigns.
Of course, that level of obvious, open, and unapologetic corruption demands a response. And it got one.
Trump has pretended to fire other cabinet officers for offenses infinitely more minor than the jaw-dropping laundry list of offenses Pruitt is running up, seemingly by the day. But the truth is that Pruitt has not violated the One Rule—he hasn’t disagreed with Trump.
So long as Pruitt is is there romping-stomping over environmental laws, destroying his agency, suppressing information about climate change, and spreading the gospel of more oil, more gas, more better, Trump will remain a cheerleader. Because Trump doesn’t believe there is any such thing as a crime—not when his team is doing it. There’s just … fake law.
Pruitt is doing the job President Donald Trump wants — including an announcement Monday that the agency will reverse the Obama administration’s attempt to tighten fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks.
So what if he’s destroying the environment and perverting the entire purpose of his agency—so long as it serves Republicans.
A review of fundraising invitations reveals that at least three members of Congress had fundraisers at the now-controversial Capital Hill brownstone during the same period of time that Pruitt was living there. Several of those fundraisers took place on dates when Pruitt was in Washington, D.C., according to a cross-reference of the invitations and Pruitt’s schedule.
So what if his sleeping arrangements are allowed to override the recommendation of agency scientists to expand a notorious pipeline that has already spilled tar sands sludge into US waterways.
The signoff by the E.P.A. came even though the agency, at the end of the Obama administration, had moved to fine Enbridge $61 million in connection with a 2010 pipeline episode that sent hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan and other waterways. The fine was the second-largest in the history of the Clean Water Act, behind the penalty imposed after the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
So what if Pruitt has a private army, a whole floor of the EPA building sealed off behind a special security system just for his own use, a $25,000 cone of silence in his office?
So what if he took six-figure journeys to both Italy and Morocco where he promoted fracking for gas—which is not just not the EPA’s job, but entirely counter to the EPA’s job?
So what if he’s living in a lobbyist’s home, while approving projects for that lobbyist, holding GOP fundraisers, and rolling back regulations that benefit his hosts?
None of that concerns Trump. In fact, the reaction to Pruitt’s refusal to fly with ordinary Americans didn’t come with a reprimand. It came with this.
Aides to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt last year considered leasing a private jet on a month-to-month basis to accommodate his travel needs, according to current and former agency officials.
Because someone who is doing Donald Trump’s work, doesn’t need to associate with Americans. After all, they are not his clients. And they certainly don’t need to worry about anyone else calling them on ethics violations.
An agency ethics official at the Environmental Protection Agency says Administrator Scott Pruitt's lease of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a prominent fossil-fuels lobbyist didn't violate federal ethics rules.
A memo signed by Kevin Minoli contends that Pruitt's $50-a-night rental payments constitute a fair market rate. … Minoli's memo says the $50-a-night rate would total $1,500 for 30 nights a month, which he deemed to be a fair price.
That seems highly doubtful, considering that some single bedroom units in the area rent for over $2,500 a month, Pruitt had the run of the whole place, and the townhome was apparently nice enough and large enough to host GOP fundraisers. In fact, on a per-night basis, the average home in the area was almost three times the rate that Pruitt paid … when he paid. Because Pruitt wasn’t paying $1,500 a month. He was paying only for the nights he was there. Meaning that his total bill for over six months at a centrally located DC townhouse ran to $6,000. Though they apparently did pay for the front door after Pruitt’s private army got nervous and broke it down.
That’s the kind of deal that can make other DC staffers sorry that they don’t have a leaky pipeline to approve.