Thread: EPA says 'unprecedented' number of death threats against Pruitt

EPA says 'unprecedented' number of death threats against Pruitt

By Joseph Weber
1 hour ago

Former Special Assistant to President Trump Marc Lotter and "Microtrends Squared" author Mark Penn on mounting concerns of a potential trade war and the controversies surrounding EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has faced an "unprecedented" number of death threats, according to an agency spokesman.

His statement follows reports Pruitt has spent millions on security despite no proof his life was in danger.

“According to EPA’s Assistant Inspector General, Scott Pruitt has faced an unprecedented amount of death threats against him and his family,” agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox said late Friday. “Americans should all agree that members of the president’s Cabinet should be kept safe from these violent threats.”

The statement was obtained Saturday by Fox News and included a list of several published reports about such incidents.

A nationwide search of state and federal court records by the Associated Press found no case in which anyone was arrested or charged with threatening Pruitt, the wire service said Friday.

The agency has spent millions of dollars for a 20-member, full-time detail for Pruitt, which is roughly 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 wire service. They come as Pruitt fends off allegations of profligate spending and ethical missteps.

Pruitt's domestic and international travel led to rapidly escalating costs, with the security detail racking up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000. The demands of providing 24-hour coverage even meant taking some investigators away from field work, such as when Pruitt traveled to California for a family vacation.

Total security costs reportedly are nearly $3 million when pay is added to travel expenses.

Pruitt has said his use of first-class airfare was initiated following unpleasant interactions with other travelers. In one incident, someone yelled a profanity as he walked through the airport.

The EPA administrator also has come under intense scrutiny for big raises for two of closest aides and his rental of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a lobbyist who represents fossil fuel clients.

“This was like an Airbnb situation,” Pruitt told Fox News on Wednesday, in an exclusive interview in which he defended his actions amid allegations of questionable spending. “When I was not there, the landlord, they had access to the entirety of the facility. When I was there, I only had access to a room.”

At least three congressional Republicans and a chorus of Democrats have called for Pruitt's ouster. But President Trump is so far standing by him.

A review of Pruitt's ethical conduct by White House officials is underway, adding to probes by congressional oversight committees and the EPA's inspector general.

Pruitt, 49, was closely aligned with the oil and gas industry as Oklahoma's state attorney general before being tapped by Trump, who has praised Pruitt's relentless efforts to scrap, delay or rewrite Obama-era environmental regulations.

Pruitt also has championed budget cuts and staff reductions at the agency so deep that even Republican budget hawks in Congress won’t implement them.

EPA's press office has not disclosed the cost of Pruitt's security or the size of his protective detail, saying doing so could imperil his personal safety.

But other sources within EPA and documents released through public information requests help provide a window into the ballooning costs.

Pruitt's predecessor, Gina McCarthy, had a security detail that numbered about a half dozen, less than a third the size of Pruitt's. She flew coach and was not accompanied by security during her off hours.

The EPA spent nearly $9,000 last year on increased counter-surveillance precautions for Pruitt, including hiring a private contractor to sweep his office for hidden listening devices and installing sophisticated biometric locks for the doors. The payment for the bug sweep went to a vice president at Perrotta's security company.

The EPA official who spoke to AP said Perrotta also arranged the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth for Pruitt's office.

At least five EPA officials were placed on leave, reassigned or demoted after pushing back against spending requests such as a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 for furniture such as a bulletproof desk for the armed security officer always stationed inside the administrator's office suite.

Those purchases were not approved.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018...st-pruitt.html

I think all Cabinet Members should not only have access to first class travel if they feel they want or need it and they should all have a sound-proof phone room. That should be law. That might stop at least some of the leakers.

The scumbag is getting death threats because he is ok'ing toxic products that will damage or kill our children so the rich can get richer. That stinks to high heaven! That is NOT WHAT THE EPA'S FUNCTION IS! Americans deserve a real EPA administrator. The sooner he is gone the better.

SO MUCH WASTE, FRAUD AND ABUSE OF OUR MONEY

Originally Posted by Judy

I think all Cabinet Members should not only have access to first class travel if they feel they want or need it and they should all have a sound-proof phone room. That should be law. That might stop at least some of the leakers.

Not unless they pay for it themselves!

Scott Pruitt Before the E.P.A.: Fancy Homes, a Shell Company and Friends With Money

By STEVE EDER and HIROKO TABUCHIAPRIL 21, 2018



Scott Pruitt in 2014, when he was Oklahoma attorney general. Credit Nick Oxford for The New York Times
OKLAHOMA CITY — Early in Scott Pruitt’s political career, as a state senator from Tulsa, he attended a gathering at the Oklahoma City home of an influential telecommunications lobbyist who was nearing retirement and about to move away.
The lobbyist said that after the 2003 gathering, Mr. Pruitt — who had a modest legal practice and a state salary of $38,400 — reached out to her. He wanted to buy her showplace home as a second residence for when he was in the state capital.
“For those ego-minded politicians, it would be pretty cool to have this house close to the capitol,” said the lobbyist, Marsha Lindsey. “It was stunning.”
Soon Mr. Pruitt was staying there, and so was at least one other lawmaker, according to interviews. Mr. Pruitt even bought Ms. Lindsey’s dining room set, art and antique rugs, she said.

A review of real estate and other public records shows that Mr. Pruitt was not the sole owner: The property was held by a shell company registered to a business partner and law school friend, Kenneth Wagner. Mr. Wagner now holds a top political job at the Environmental Protection Agency, where Mr. Pruitt, 49, is the administrator.

The mortgage on the Oklahoma City home, the records show, was issued by a local bank that was led by another business associate of Mr. Pruitt’s, Albert Kelly. Recently barred from working in the finance industry because of a banking violation, Mr. Kelly is now one of Mr. Pruitt’s top aides at the E.P.A. and runs the agency’s Superfund program.
At the E.P.A., Mr. Pruitt is under investigation for allegations of unchecked spending, ethics lapses and other issues, including his interactions with lobbyists. An examination of Mr. Pruitt’s political career in Oklahoma reveals that many of the pitfalls he has encountered in Washington have echoes in his past.



Mr. Pruitt’s home in Oklahoma City when he was a state senator. The house, which had belonged to a lobbyist, was held by a shell company registered to Mr. Pruitt’s business partner and financed by a bank an associate of his ran. Credit Brett Deering for The New York Times
According to real estate records, the 2003 purchase of the house for $375,000 came at a steep discount of about $100,000 from what Ms. Lindsey had paid a year earlier — a shortfall picked up by her employer, the telecom giant SBC Oklahoma.
SBC, previously known as Southwestern Bell and later as AT&T, had been lobbying lawmakers in the early 2000s on a range of matters, including a deregulation bill that would allow it to raise rates and a separate regulatory effort to reopen a case involving allegations that it had bribed local officials a decade earlier. Mr. Pruitt sided with the company on both matters, state records show.
In 2005, the shell company — Capitol House L.L.C. — sold the property for $95,000 more than it had paid. While shell companies are legal, they often obscure the people who have an interest in them, and none of Mr. Pruitt’s financial disclosure filings in Oklahoma mentioned the company or the proceeds — a potential violation of the state’s ethics rules.
The Oklahoma City deal, which has not been previously reported, was one of several instances in which Mr. Pruitt appeared to have benefited from his relationships with Mr. Kelly and Mr. Wagner while in state politics.
During his eight years as a Republican state senator, Mr. Pruitt also upgraded his family residence in suburban Tulsa from a small ranch-style home to a lakefront property in a gated community. In addition, he bought a sizable stake in a minor league baseball team, and took a second job at Mr. Wagner’s corporate law firm. Mr. Kelly’s bank, SpiritBank, would be there for much of it — providing financing for Mr. Pruitt’s Tulsa home and his stake in the baseball team, as well as the mortgage for the Oklahoma City house.
Mr. Pruitt’s interactions with SBC also show that his blurring of lines with lobbyists has roots in his Oklahoma years. One of the issues at the E.P.A. that has gotten Mr. Pruitt in trouble with government watchdogs involved his renting a room in Washington for $50 a night from the wife of an energy lobbyist who has had business in front of the agency.
Lobbyists and others in Oklahoma state politics who encountered Mr. Pruitt recalled him as a tough competitor who always had his eye on a higher office. Some called him a “Boy Scout” who was stingy with his money, while others said privately that he had exuded a sense of entitlement — that rules did not apply to him.
David Walters, a former Oklahoma governor and Democrat, described Mr. Pruitt as someone who looked out for himself over the needs of constituents, especially during his years as attorney general.
“For those ego-minded politicians, it would be pretty cool to have this house close to the capitol,” said Marsha Lindsey, the lobbyist who previously owned the home. “I was disappointed to find him operating in a hyperpartisan manner and seemingly representing corporate interests over Oklahoma citizens,” Mr. Walters said.
In response to questions submitted by The New York Times about Mr. Pruitt’s finances in Oklahoma, an E.P.A. spokeswoman said Mr. Pruitt’s business dealings with Mr. Kelly and Mr. Wagner “were ethical” and his stake in the shell company “was a simple real estate investment.”
“Mr. Wagner and Mr. Kelly left high-profile positions in law and banking in Oklahoma, to serve in the administration,” the spokeswoman said in an email. “They are dedicated E.P.A. employees who have earned the respect and admiration of E.P.A. career employees across the country. They serve the country professionally, and transparently — and are committed to ensuring the programs they work on are successful.”

Rubbing Shoulders in Oklahoma City

The house on Northeast 17th Street in the historic Lincoln Terrace neighborhood here was built in 1928 and has a grand staircase and an arched doorway. Ms. Lindsey said one of the home’s attractions was that it looked out on the white dome of the State Capitol.
Mr. Pruitt stayed in the house for parts of 2004 and 2005, neighbors said. The residence put him within walking distance of his job — legislators worked only part of the year, mainly from February through May — and also near SBC Bricktown Ballpark, which was home to his baseball team, the RedHawks, now known as the Dodgers.
Jim Dunlap, then a Republican leader in the State Senate, said he rented a room from Mr. Pruitt above the garage. He was under the impression that Mr. Pruitt had bought the home as an investment with a group of lawyers, he said.
“This was a place where you slept and had dinner,” Mr. Dunlap said. “It was all above board.”
Oklahoma campaign disclosures filed by Mr. Pruitt at the time made no mention of the home purchase or the rental agreement with Mr. Dunlap. Real estate records show that the transfer of ownership from Ms. Lindsey, the lobbyist, was rather complicated and involved multiple steps — none of them with any public reference to Mr. Pruitt, though the E.P.A. spokeswoman confirmed that he was one of five co-owners of the shell company.
The shell company was registered to Kenneth Wagner, an E.P.A. aide and law school friend of Mr. Pruitt’s. When asked whether such a disclosure would be necessary, the executive director of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, Ashley Kemp, referred The Times to a 2005 ethics manual. The rules required disclosing “every business or entity” in which an official held securities valued at $5,000 or more. Securities were defined to include “documents that represent a share in a company.”
The E.P.A. spokeswoman did not respond to questions about Mr. Pruitt’s disclosure filings in Oklahoma.
In November 2003, Ms. Lindsey signed the deed of the home over to a relocation company SBC had hired to handle her move and severance. She was reimbursed for close to $475,000, the amount she had paid for the house in 2002, as her contract required, she said.
The next day, the relocation company signed the property over to Jon Jiles, a health care executive who has a range of business interests and made contributions to Mr. Pruitt’s political campaigns. Records show no mortgage was involved, and Mr. Jiles paid $375,000 in cash.
That December, Mr. Wagner officially registered the Capitol House shell company with the Oklahoma authorities, and Mr. Jiles transferred the deed to the newly formed company. Mr. Jiles was listed as a manager of Capitol House, and Mr. Wagner as the registered agent.
The following month, SpiritBank, where Mr. Kelly was chief executive, approved a mortgage in the amount of $420,000 in the name of Capital House L.L.C., another spelling of the entity.
Ms. Lindsey, the former lobbyist, said she had been focused on her impending move to Dallas, and had deferred the sale and other arrangements to the company’s relocation agent. She said she had known nothing about the involvement of the shell company and did not recall the final sale price. “The bottom line is — it is unusual to take a $100,000 loss on the house” after being on the market for just a few weeks, she said.
Asked about the drop in price, AT&T said in a statement that two independent firms appraised the house and that its average value came to $390,000. The valuation and sale were handled by the relocation business, the company added.

Mr. Jiles, in an email exchange, said he became involved because Mr. Wagner presented the house as “a good deal” and a convenient place to stay. He said he had no other business interactions with Mr. Pruitt.
“A cash transaction was most likely used because sellers will often sell for less if it’s a cash deal rather than a finance deal,” Mr. Jiles said. “And I was likely the one most able to do a cash deal at the time.”
In a statement, SpiritBank’s chief executive and president, Rick Harper, said the bank was legally prohibited from commenting on specific loans, but added, “SpiritBank is confident these loans were made in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.”

The deal came at a time when SBC was a major employer in the state and a lobbying force in Oklahoma City.
As president of SBC Oklahoma and a registered lobbyist, Ms. Lindsey said she entertained lawmakers at her home. Moreover, SBC was known to court lawmakers with gifts, including tickets for Mr. Pruitt and others to watch Oklahoma State University play in the men’s basketball Final Four in 2004, The Oklahoman reported at the time.
“It gives us a chance to try to build a relationship with a lawmaker or an official,” a spokesman, Andy Morgan, told the newspaper. “Events like that offer a much more relaxed atmosphere.” He added: “We’re one of the state’s largest employers. It’s important that lawmakers are informed about issues affecting our company.”
The prospect of another investigation into a longstanding bribery case had especially rattled SBC. In the early 1990s, an SBC lobbyist had been found guilty in federal court of paying a bribe to a public utilities commissioner to sway a vote that allowed the company to keep federal tax savings rather than disburse them to its ratepayers. But the vote itself was never overturned, and in 2003, another commissioner proposed reopening the investigation, claiming SBC still owed billions of dollars in refunds. The commissioner dropped his plans for an investigation after state legislators, and the attorney general at the time, Drew Edmondson, pushed back against the effort.
Later, when Mr. Pruitt became attorney general, he helped quash another attempt to revisit the SBC bribery case. In a March 2011 letter, Mr. Pruitt’s office warned that any commissioner who reopened the investigation could face prosecution for the misuse of public funds.


Mr. Pruitt with Albert Kelly, a top aide at the E.P.A. Mr. Kelly, previously chief executive of SpiritBank, was recently barred from working in the finance industry. Credit M. Scott Mahaskey/Politico

A Run of Good Fortune

Around the same time Mr. Pruitt invested in the house in Oklahoma City, he had finished a big business deal that involved Mr. Kelly, Mr. Wagner and a campaign donor who ran a large staffing company.
A baseball player in college, Mr. Pruitt bought an approximately 25 percent stake in the Oklahoma City RedHawks and became the team’s managing partner, making him a highly visible spokesman for the local team. Mr. Wagner also purchased a small stake, and Mr. Kelly’s bank provided financing for the deal, as first reported by The Intercept, which also disclosed the bank’s loans for one of Mr. Pruitt’s suburban Tulsa homes.
Mr. Pruitt’s main partner was Robert Funk, the business magnate who ran Express Services, the staffing firm. The sale price was not disclosed, but news reports suggested they paid over $11.5 million, with Mr. Funk carrying the biggest load.
Two months after the deal closed in November 2003, Mr. Funk attended a news conference where Mr. Pruitt announced legislation that would make it harder for Oklahoma workers to claim certain kinds of injury compensation, something that would benefit companies like Mr. Funk’s.
The relationship continued, with Mr. Funk serving as campaign chairman during Mr. Pruitt’s unsuccessful bid for lieutenant governor in 2006. Mr. Pruitt announced his candidacy outside the ballpark and cited his efforts on workers’ compensation among his achievements.
After losing the election, Mr. Pruitt took a break from public office, but continued his business relationship with Mr. Funk, proposing a $200 million town center on a parking lot next to the ballpark. The City Council balked at the project, but Mr. Pruitt’s ambitions and prominence grew.
Back at home in Tulsa, Mr. Pruitt worked with Mr. Wagner’s firm, which had offices in SpiritBank’s building. As a corporate lawyer, Mr. Wagner frequently represented the bank, but also represented a used car dealership run by Mr. Pruitt’s family.
In 2004, Mr. Pruitt upgraded from a modest one-story home where his family had lived for over a decade to a $605,000 lakeside house a mile away. SpiritBank financed the home. The E.P.A. spokeswoman said Mr. Pruitt was able to afford the house “due to his sale of personal assets.”

In September 2010, as Mr. Pruitt was on his way to successfully winning his race for attorney general, he and Mr. Funk announced that they had sold the RedHawks. They did not disclose the price, but Forbes estimated its value a few years later at $21 million. SpiritBank, where Mr. Kelly was still chief executive, “played a key role in facilitating” the deal by providing acquisition financing, a news release said.
As a candidate for attorney general, Mr. Pruitt was not required to disclose the extent of his assets and how much money he made, but there were hints that his finances had improved since his early days as a state senator. Early into his term, he and his wife paid $1.18 million for a 5,518-square-foot Cotswold-style stone residence, featured in a book on Tulsa homes. It has five fireplaces, a library and a guest apartment.

The Attorney General Years

During his six years as attorney general, Mr. Pruitt blazed a path of spending that holds new meaning now that his E.P.A. expenditures are the subject of investigations and growing political outrage.
Mr. Pruitt moved the attorney general’s outpost in Tulsa to a prime suite in the Bank of America tower, an almost $12,000-a-month space that quadrupled the annual rent. He required his staff to regularly drive him between Tulsa and Oklahoma City, according to several people familiar with his time as attorney general.
And he channeled state contracts to Mr. Wagner’s law firm, which was already doing business with the state.
From 2011 to 2017, state records show, the attorney general’s office awarded more than $600,000 in contracts to Mr. Wagner’s Tulsa-based law firm, Latham, Wagner Steele & Lehman — greatly increasing work with the firm, which had gotten a total of about $100,000 over the four years before that. These contracts are not competitively bid. The additional expenditures reflected an approach, contentious even among some fellow Republicans, to hire private lawyers for state business, often for cases challenging federal regulations.
“He said that these people had special expertise that his agency didn’t have,” said Paul Wesselhoft, a Republican former state representative. “He has an army of lawyers with expertise. He didn’t have to spend that extra tax money to hire another law firm. It didn’t seem frugal.”
Mr. Pruitt used the Bank of America building as a base for his growing political ambitions. Oklahoma Strong Leadership, a political action committee he formed in 2015 to help finance fellow Republicans’ campaigns, operated out of the building. The group shared a suite with another PAC tied to Mr. Pruitt, Liberty 2.0, as well as his campaign office.

Oklahoma Strong Leadership, funded by private donors and corporations, also appeared to support lavish travel and entertainment.
An analysis of expenditure disclosures by the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit that pushes for stricter rules governing money in politics, shows that just 9 percent of the PAC’s spending was devoted to other candidates. The group found that the PAC had disbursed more than $7,000 for trips to Hawaii in summer 2015 and 2016, $2,180 of which was spent at a Ritz-Carlton. The PAC also put $4,000 toward dining, including a $661 meal at the Cafe Pacific, a high-end seafood restaurant in Dallas.
The person who oversaw that spending, as the PAC’s treasurer and chairman, was Mr. Wagner.

To Washington, With Friends

Last summer, about six months into his job as E.P.A. administrator, Mr. Pruitt traveled by chartered jet to a Superfund cleanup site in Colorado, where the Gold King Mine had released toxic wastewater.
At the event were two of his most loyal Oklahoma business associates — Mr. Kelly and Mr. Wagner, newly installed as E.P.A. officials themselves, though neither of them had a background in environmental policy or regulation.
Last year, Mr. Kelly, known as Kell, was barred for life from the banking industry. He has not disclosed why, though an order from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said there was “reason to believe” he was illegally involved in “an agreement pertaining to a loan.” He has pushed for more intensive cleanups of Superfund locations to pave the way for investment on the reclaimed land by private developers.
Mr. Wagner landed a job as one of Mr. Pruitt’s closest personal aides, helping the agency coordinate its regional offices and representing it at high-profile events.
At an energy conference in Kentucky in November, Mr. Wagner reminisced about his long relationship with the E.P.A. chief.
“I’ve known Administrator Pruitt for 20-plus years, and had the good fortune of being his business partner in a triple-A baseball team and a former law partner as well,” he said. “The idea that the major influence at the E.P.A. is coming from the middle of the country is something new.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/u...pgtype=article

Scott Pruitt’s Special Phone Booth Draws GAO Investigation

Energy News January 25, 2018 OK Energy News Comments Offon Scott Pruitt’s Special Phone Booth Draws GAO Investigation 29 Views



Not only are some Democratic members of Congress interested in the $25,000 secure phone booth in EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s office, so is the Government Accountability Office.

It plans an investigation into Pruitt’s decision to have the specially designed booth installed in his office, according to E and E News and the Daily Caller.

In a letter responding to Democratic Rep. Pete DeFazio of Oregon, EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins said the GAO has decided to look into “appropriation law questions regarding the installation of the security booth.”

Elkins wants to save time and resources, so he has dropped an Inspector General investigation of similar nature.

In the interest of saving time and resources, Elkins is dropping an Inspector General (IG) investigation of similar nature. IG investigations into the existence of the funds allocated toward building the booth and providing 24 hour security for Pruitt, as well as whether proper oversight guidelines were followed in spending the money will continue, according to E&E News.

The EPA installed the secure line for Pruitt to hold sensitive conversations without the threat of an outside breach.

“Federal agencies need to have one of these so that secured communications, not subject to hacking from the outside, can be held,” EPA Spokeswoman Liz Bowman told reporters in September. “It’s called a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF). This is something which a number, if not all, Cabinet offices have and EPA needs to have updated.”

The EPA spent another $3,000 on a “sweep for covert/illegal surveillance devices” in Pruitt’s office. The agency argued last month that the additional steps and extra security hired to protect Pruitt are reasonable considering the number of threats that have come against Pruitt and his family since he took office.

https://energymarketingpro.org/energ...investigation/

$57,700 all toll..

EPA Chief Had a Very Pricey Phone Booth Built for Himself

3/14/19 By Madeleine Aggeler
Trump administration officials have expensive taste. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke reportedly spent $139,000 on an office door last year, HUD Secretary Ben Carson accidentally ordered a $31,000 dining set (technically, his wife ordered it, and he’s trying to cancel it, okay?), and according to a new report from the Washington Post, EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has a $43,000 soundproof phone booth built in his office. That’s a lot of money to spend on chitchatting with your oil-exec friends about the benefits of climate change.
The Post found that in addition to the $25,000 soundproof phone booth, the EPA spent $18,000 in prep work, including $7,978 to remove closed-circuit television equipment, $3,361 to include a dropped ceiling, and $3,350 to paint and patch the 55-square-foot booth.
Pruitt told lawmakers that the secure space was necessary for him to be able to do his job, but no other EPA chief has ever had a similar phone booth built, and the agency already has a secure facility for sensitive information on another floor.
https://www.thecut.com/2018/03/scott...one-booth.html

No leaks coming out of EPA. President Trump needs a couple of these. Trump, call Pruitt and get a couple of these booths you can dart in and have a confidential, classified conversation that doesn't leak.

G.O.P. Support Shows Cracks as Scott Pruitt’s Ethics Inquiries Widen

By Coral Davenport
April 20, 2018


From left, Senator John Boozman of Arkansas, Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.CreditDanny Johnston/AP; Al Drago for NYT; Chris Kleponis/Epa-Efe/Rex/Shutterstock; Jonathan Bachman/Getty Images

WASHINGTON — Some of the most reliable conservatives in Congress are starting to speak out against Scott Pruitt, the chief of the Environmental Protection Agency who is now facing a barrage of ethics and spending questions.
Previously, conservative Republicans had shown a reluctance to question the actions of top Trump administration officials. Their new outspokenness against a prominent architect of President Trump’s regulatory rollback represents a major break from the past.
In an interview this week, Senator John Boozman of Arkansas said of Mr. Pruitt, “I think there are legitimate concerns about him.” He applauded Mr. Pruitt’s industry-friendly environmental policies, but said, “I think the president at some point is going to weigh in.” Mr. Boozman serves on the Senate environment panel as well as the powerful Appropriations Committee, which controls the E.P.A.’s spending.

On Thursday, John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 ranking member of the Senate, said that Mr. Pruitt was “just fine” on policy, “but obviously this controversy continues to swirl and it needs to be resolved, one way or the other.” Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, chairwoman of the Senate Energy Committee, said she intended to summon Mr. Pruitt to her committee for questioning.

“The administration has a decision to make” on Mr. Pruitt’s future, she said.
Also on Thursday, the E.P.A.’s inspector general opened a new investigation into Mr. Pruitt’s use of the agency’s security team for personal travel.

Mr. Pruitt is expected to face a grilling next week when he is scheduled to testify before the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on the environment.

Representative Greg Walden of Oregon, chairman of the House Energy panel, said that Mr. Pruitt would have to answer the “many questions” that Mr. Walden and other Representatives have about his performance.

It’s a far cry from a year ago, when the Senate confirmed Mr. Pruitt as head of the E.P.A. and Republicans rhapsodized about the man who had built a career by suing the agency he would now lead. They celebrated Mr. Pruitt’s zeal to roll back Obama-era regulations on water and air pollution.

Now, however, Mr. Pruitt is caught in a barrage of questions surrounding his illegal purchase of an office phone booth, his expenditures on first-class travel and the ethics of his rental of a condominium linked to an energy lobbyist.
Mr. Pruitt’s fate ultimately depends on Mr. Trump, who has publicly supported him. But Republicans are not only calling for him to face further Congressional inquiry — Mr. Boozman in the interview also urged Mr. Pruitt to explain himself before his two powerful committees — but are also opening investigations into his spending.

On Wednesday, the White House budget director, Mick Mulvaney, said he was opening an investigation into Mr. Pruitt’s decision to spend $43,000 on a secure phone booth for his office, after a Monday report by a congressional watchdog agency concluded that the expenditure was illegal.

"You have to go into another line of work if you don't want people to be mean to you"
- Trey Gowdy

Last week, Representative Trey Gowdy, the South Carolina Republican who is chairman of the House Oversight Committee, opened an investigation into Mr. Pruitt’s expenditures on first-class travel, which the E.P.A. has said were necessary because passengers have made threatening remarks to Mr. Pruitt during flights. Mr. Gowdy, who gained prominence for his investigations into Hillary Clinton over the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, that left four Americans dead, on Sunday had pointed words for Mr. Pruitt.
"I would be shocked if that many people knew who Scott Pruitt was,” Mr. Gowdy said on Fox News. “So the notion that I have to fly first class because I don’t want people to be mean to me, you need to go into another line of work if you don’t want people to be mean to you, like maybe a monk where you don’t come in contact with anyone.”

Privately, a number of Republican staffers and strategists say that last week’s Senate confirmation of Mr. Pruitt’s deputy, Andrew Wheeler — a former coal lobbyist who worked for years on Capitol Hill — would make Mr. Pruitt’s departure easier because Mr. Wheeler would be in place as acting E.P.A. chief and could be relied upon to implement an agenda of rolling back environmental regulations.
Some Republican lawmakers have also pointed out the similarities between Mr. Pruitt’s case and that of Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s former secretary of health and human services. Mr. Price was forced to resign after racking up at least $400,000 in travel bills for chartered flights.

“The ethical lapses associated with Scott Pruitt are troublesome,” Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana said. “It will be the President’s call,” Mr. Cassidy added, noting: “He let Price go.”

Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, suggested that, at a moment when Mr. Trump’s troubles include news conferences by a pornographic film actress, the raiding of his lawyer’s office and hotel room, and questions about his ties to Russia, the ethical questions surrounding Mr. Pruitt’s spending may have slid under the radar. But if they continue, he said, Republicans are unlikely to be sympathetic.

"Maybe when Pruitt’s 30-person Secret Service detail carries him through Disney World in a sedan chair like a mandarin, people will have had enough,” Mr. Castellanos wrote in an email. “That’s Pruitt’s real problem. Pruitt represents the opposite of Donald Trump’s populism: He thinks he is more worthy than the little people he represents.”

Senator John Barrasso, who leads the Senate Environment Committee, has long been a cheerleader for and defender of Mr. Pruitt. His home state of Wyoming is the nation’s largest producer of coal, and Mr. Barrasso has, in particular, celebrated Mr. Pruitt’s efforts to loosen rules on coal pollution.

But his tone changed markedly after the release of Monday’s report on Mr. Pruitt’s phone booth spending.

“The Government Accountability Office has found that E.P.A. failed to notify Congress before installing this privacy booth,” said Mr. Barrasso in a statement. “It is critical that E.P.A. and all federal agencies comply with notification requirements to Congress before spending taxpayer dollars. E.P.A. must give a full public accounting of this expenditure and explain why the agency thinks it was complying with the law.”

Many of Mr. Pruitt’s critics from the right have zeroed in on the question of his use of taxpayer dollars. Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, a favorite of the Tea Party movement, said: “He needs to watch his expenditures. It’s important that we protect our American taxpayers.”

Of course Mr. Pruitt still has his champions in Congress — advocates who say that the attacks on his spending are manufactured by environmental activists who dislike his policies. “I think he’s doing a great job,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the chairman of the House Science Committee who has worked closely with Mr. Pruitt on efforts to change the E.P.A.’s use of scientific research. “I don’t think we ought to be distracted by the agenda of his liberal opponents.”
“I think he’s the best E.P.A. director we’ve ever had,” said Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi. “I think he is being criticized because he’s changing the agency in a very positive way.”

Last week a group of 21 conservative groups wrote a letter to Mr. Trump making the same point. “Precisely because of Pruitt’s record of leadership, radical environmentalists and the biased media are trying to force him out of office,” they wrote.

Nevertheless, G.O.P. strategists see an important shift. “There are times when the legislative branch gets really sick and tired of the executive branch — and says so. I don’t think you’ve seen that in a while, ” said John Feehery, a Republican strategist who worked for the former House Speaker Dennis Hastert and the former House Majority Leader Tom Delay. “Pruitt has made a lot of people very angry.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/20/c...pgtype=article