Ethical polluting agent

Who needs to combat climate change when you can pull off a Red-Sea-parting-level miracle? That’s the only way to explain the way Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt has held onto his job while wading waist-deep in ethical crude oil.

Before this week, it was really bad: first-class flights and a 19-agent, 24-hour security detail. Renting a Capitol Hill condo for way-below-market rate. Approving an energy project championed by a lobbyist married to the condo’s co-owner. Sneaking through pay raises for top aides — that the White House had already nixed — through “emergency” hiring powers for water cleanups. Authorizing — in apparent violation of the law — a $43,000 soundproof booth for his office.

It just got worse. This week, the Washington Post reported that, barely three months after taking office, Pruitt dispatched an EPA aide to arrange a meeting with Chick-fil-A CEO Dan Cathy, for a “potential business opportunity.” What that meant: Pruitt was seeking to get his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise.

Correct: A Trump Cabinet member used government resources to try to get a fast-food operation for his spouse.

But the man in the White House who never saw an opinion he couldn’t tweet — especially when it comes to calling out members of his own Cabinet — has only words of support for this swamp thing.

Contrast that with Attorney General Jeff Sessions: He dutifully does his job (advancing objectives we disagree with) and runs the Justice Department without embarrassment. Yet President Trump subjects him to ritual humiliation, all because he did the right thing: recuse himself from overseeing the investigation into Russia’s meddling with the 2016 election and the Trump campaign’s possible complicity.

That’s priorities in this White House.