The Washington Post is reporting that, in the wake of Scott Pruitt’s departure at the EPA, several of his top assistants are also calling it quits.
The departures include Jahan Wilcox, who as Pruitt’s combative spokesman fiercely defended the embattled Cabinet member and found himself facing criticism for his sometimes antagonistic approach to reporters covering the EPA; Lincoln Ferguson, a longtime aide and confidant who worked for Pruitt in Oklahoma and was nearly always by his side during his travels; Hayley Ford, deputy White House liaison, and Kelsi Daniell, an EPA spokeswoman.
Without Scott Pruitt acting as an icebreaker for graft, corruption, and lying to Congress, the EPA is just not a fun place anymore. And besides, as new EPA chief Andrew Wheeler gets down the nitty gritty of grinding environmental legislation into dust and salting over the grave of the Clean Air Act, the chances for gold-plated private trips to Rome and we-still-don’t-know-why-they-went shindigs in Morocco are simply no longer there.
The trio of assistants who Pruitt counted on to run down his laundry, shop for his house, and find a job for his wife—and who Pruitt slipped massive payments from a fund intended to go to environmental consultants—left in advance of his extremely blessed resignation. Also out a few weeks ago was Albert Kelly, the former banker whose dishonesty had gotten him banned from banking for life before Pruitt put him in charge of the $1.1 billion account to distribute money to sites needing environmental clean up.
Wheeler, a long-time DC insider, coal lobbyist, and former aide to climate-denying Senator James Inhofe, is expected to keep his head down, live in his own lobbyist-pair for him, fly business class, and quietly go about the work of disassembling the EPA much more effectively than Pruitt. Which likely means that he’s also going to generate many fewer perks—except for the oil companies, coal companies, fossil fuel lobbyists, pesticide manufacturers, and everyone else on the receiving end of his de-regulatory gifts. And really, there should be enough room out there in the Trump lobbyist boom to take in all of Pruitt’s scattered flock.
There’s no word yet on whether Wheeler will retain Pruitt’s $25 million a year private army, or employ his $47,000 cone of silence. But it appears that Scott Pruitt’s legacy at the EPA is leaving as quickly as he did. Except for the part where he fundamental crippled the role of the agency, put in motion the destruction of the Clean Power Plan, Waters of the United States protections, Clean Streams protections, scientific review boards, public databases of climate data, and generally set the agency to eating itself. That stuff remains.