EPA chief Scott Pruitt steps down
WASHINGTON – Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general who pursued President Donald Trump’s promises of deregulation at the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned Thursday.
Pruitt’s reputation as a dogged deregulator and outspoken booster of the president allowed him to weather a litany of ethics scandals in recent months, including questions about first-class travel, a condo rental from a lobbyist and the installation of expensive soundproofing in his office.
But revelations about his behavior continued to mount, including reports that he enlisted co-workers to help him search for housing, book travel and help search for a six-figure job for his wife. That quest included setting up a call with Chick-fil-A executives, in which he discussed her becoming a franchisee, as well as outreach to a conservative judicial group that eventually hired Marlyn Pruitt.
In recent weeks, an exodus of trusted staffers left Pruitt increasingly isolated, and some once-loyal Republican lawmakers wearied of defending him. Investigators on Capitol Hill had summoned current and former EPA aides for questioning, as part of the more than dozen federal inquiries into Pruitt’s spending and management of the agency.
On Thursday, President Trump called Pruitt’s top deputy, Andrew Wheeler, to inform him that he would be taking the helm of the agency, according to an individual who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Soon after, Trump announced in a two-part tweet that he had accepted Pruitt’s resignation. “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this,” Trump wrote. White House chief of staff John Kelly, who traveled with Trump to a political rally in Montana on Thursday, had for months privately groused about Pruitt’s conduct and pushed for his removal during West Wing meetings, according to White House officials who were not authorized to speak publicly. In a resignation letter released by the EPA, Pruitt wrote that it had been “a blessing” to serve under Trump and undertake “transformative work at EPA. But he added that “the unrelenting attacks on me personally, my family, are unprecedented and have taken a sizable toll on all of us.” He signed the letter, “Your Faithful Friend, Scott Pruitt.” Wheeler, a former Senate staffer and EPA employee who spent the past decade representing energy companies, will become acting administrator on Monday, Trump tweeted. The departure marked a precipitous fall for Pruitt, who during his roughly 16 months in office took steps to reverse more than a dozen major Obama-era regulations and overhauled key elements of the agency’s approach to scientific research. For months he had ranked as a personal confidant and influential policy adviser to the president, commiserating with Trump over negative stories and indiscreet aides while praising the commander in chief for his intelligence and political acumen. As scrutiny of Pruitt grew in recent months, Trump initially stood by his EPA chief. The president tweeted in early April that he was “doing a great job.”