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After spending a career suing the EPA from the outside — Scott Pruitt is now in charge of dismantling the EPA from the inside. But that destructive “dream job” he’s got is not enough — Scott Pruitt wants to bilk the American Tax Payers, for all he’s worth too.
A constant drip of self-dealing. And this is just what we know so far …
by Joy Crane and Nick Tabor, nymag.com — April 1, 2018
Introduction by David Cay Johnston
(Here’s just the swamp-dirt on Pruitt.)
[...] [2017]
3/22 The American Petroleum Institute holds its board meeting at Trump’s hotel, where it meets with EPA chief Scott Pruitt. A month later, Pruitt suspends drilling regulations.
6/7 Scott Pruitt, the EPA chief, spends $36,000 in taxpayer money to take a military plane to New York.
8/1 A top aide to EPA chief Scott Pruitt, who oversees federal grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars, receives permission to work as a consultant for private clients. Despite his influence over public policy, the identities of his clients will be kept secret.
8/30 EPA chief Pruitt spends $43,000 to build a soundproof phone booth in his office, enabling him to hold secret conversations with lobbyists and corporate executives. The Government Accountability Office is investigating whether the move violated agency spending rules.
12/18 Under pressure from watchdogs, EPA chief Scott Pruitt terminates a $120,000 contract for a firm he has worked with in the past to dig up information on EPA staffers who had criticized him or his policies.
[2018]
3/29 ABC News reports that EPA chief Pruitt spent much of his first year in Washington living in a townhouse co-owned by the wife of J. Steven Hart, a top energy lobbyist. Hart lobbied the EPA on several policies last year, including coal regulations and limits on air pollution.
But the Scott Pruitt’s Tax Payer rip-off doesn’t stop there. Pruitt has been working the system to benefit his “friends” — and then when caught, denies he knows anything about it at all.
The Trump Administration Is 'Reviewing' EPA Chief Scott Pruitt's Conduct
by Michael Biesecker / AP; time.com — April 5, 2018
[...]
The Atlantic reported Tuesday that White House officials denied permission to grant the raises to the political appointees, by that Pruitt used a little-known legal maneuver to push them through anyway.
A 30-year-old lawyer serving as Pruitt’s senior legal counsel got a 53% raise, boosting her salary to more than $164,000. Pruitt’s 26-year-old scheduling director got a 33% raise, increasing her salary to nearly $115,000. [These 2 staff are reportedly “two young aides Pruitt brought with him from Oklahoma.”]
Asked about the issue by Fox correspondent Ed Henry, Pruitt denied approving the pay hikes.
“I did not. My staff did and I found out about [it] yesterday and I changed it,” Pruitt said, adding that the agency was now “walking back” the raises.
Pressed on who approved the spending, if not him, Pruitt claimed he didn’t know.
[...]
And there’s this little “incidental cost” that Scott Pruitt put on the ‘Taxpayers Tab’ — Millions to protect him on his extensive world travels — having little to nothing to do with — actually “Protecting the U.S. Environment” …
EPA spent millions on 20-member security detail for Pruitt, records show
Agency sources and documents show that Pruitt's concern for his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers.
by Associated Press and Adam Edelman, nbcnews.com— Apr.06.2018
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s concern with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers, as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes to protect him.
Altogether, the agency spent millions of dollars for a 20-member full-time security detail that is three times the size of his predecessor’s part-time security contingent.
New details in Pruitt’s expansive spending for security and travel emerged from agency sources and documents reviewed by The Associated Press. They come as the embattled EPA leader fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps, related to his staff and housing arrangements, that have imperiled his job.
[...]
Scott Pruitt definitely has the wrong job.
Instead of being the Chief of {not} ‘Protecting our Environment’ — he should be the Chief of Frivolous Government Expenditures. You know, all those things that Pruitt is really good at. You know, all those things that the Republican Party used to rant against.
Now they just quieting accept the Fact, that their Party is being permanently ‘stamped’ as the Party of Graft and Corruption.
And the Swamp King is leading them there, with hardly a murmuring word in dissent from {cowardly} conservative water-carriers.
Thanks to the exploits of the Trump kleptocracy — The GOP is now synonymous with The Swamp.
And EPA’s Scott Pruitt is their latest Swamp Creature Celebrity, smack-dab at the top of the “Swamp King’s” good-ole-boy buddy list. Scott is doing exactly what the Swamp Boss wants.