Scott Pruitt Is Having Yet Another Scandal-Ridden Day

A top ethics official warned he’s eroding the public’s trust—just as the EPA head got caught in an apparent lie.

Chris Kleponis/ZUMA

For Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt, the scandals just won’t let up.

The acting director of the Office of Government Ethics has written a stern letter outlining concerns over Pruitt’s seemingly endless list of controversies, warning that the American public’s trust in government was being imperiled by his mounting scandals.

In a letter addressed to EPA deputy counsel Kevin Minoli, David Apol listed several of the most serious reports concerning Pruitt’s potential ethical violations. They included Pruitt’s discounted housing rental arrangement with an energy lobbyist and his use of first-class flights for official EPA trips. Apol encouraged the agency to take the appropriate actions to address the scandals, though he stopped short of explicitly calling for Pruitt’s removal.

The letter also made mention of a recent report in The Atlantic that Pruitt had approved controversial raises for two of his close aides. Pruitt has since denied having any knowledge about the raises. But just hours after the scathing letter was published on Monday, the The Atlantic followed up on its original reporting with a previously undisclosed email appearing to directly contradict Pruitt’s denial. The magazine reports:

In the last few days, top staffers became aware of an email exchange between one of two aides who received such a raise and the agency’s human resources division. In mid-March, Sarah Greenwalt, senior counsel to the administrator, wrote to HR in an attempt to confirm that her pay raise of $56,765 was being processed. Greenwalt “definitively stated that Pruitt approves and was supportive of her getting a raise,” according to an administration official who has seen the email chain.

Amid the reports, President Donald Trump has repeatedly defended the embattled EPA chief, claiming “death threats” against Pruitt justified the administrator’s use of a lavish security detail three times the price of his predecessor’s. When asked about the threats to Pruitt’s safety on Monday, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said she couldn’t cite any specifics or police reports but that the White House was continuing to review the administrator’s conduct.

More Mother Jones reporting on Climate Desk

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate