The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump has confidence in EPA director Pruitt
Adminstrator under fire for condo rental deal, aide pay hikes.
The president said Thursday he was standing behind his agency chief, who is facing a mounting cascade of ethics questions.
President Donald Trump said he still has confidence in the embattled EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who has been the subject of a cascade of ethics questions in recent days that cast doubt on his future in the job.
“I do,” Trump said Thursday when asked if he had confidence in the Environmental Protection Agency chief as he boarded Air Force One for a trip to West Virginia.
Pruitt has been under fire for the disclosure that he rented a condo from the wife of a prominent lobbyist under unusual terms and that the EPA used an obscure law to boost the pay of two Pruitt aides over the White House’s objections.
The news has spurred calls for an investigation by Congress and the EPA’s watchdog. The White House said Wednesday it is conducting its own review of the rental arrangement.
Meanwhile, the author of an analysis the EPA used to justify Pruitt’s lease arrangement has authored a new memo stressing the review doesn’t clear Pruitt of all ethical questions involving the arrangement.
Kevin Minoli, the designated EPA ethics official who conducted the review, says it only scrutinized whether the condo lease ran afoul of federal ethics regulations prohibiting certain gifts. He concluded it didn’t.
But Minoli, in a new memo obtained by Bloomberg News, says he wasn’t asked to and didn’t examine whether the arrangement violated other ethics rules, nor “whether the actual use
of the space was consistent” with the lease agreement.
“A federal employee must comply with the standards of ethical conduct, including those related to impartiality, at all times,” Minoli wrote in the 24-page memo dated April 4.
Trump on Wednesday privately asked some lawmakers to share their opinions of Pruitt, said two people familiar with the requests. The president didn’t signal any intention to fire Pruitt, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private conversations with the president.
Trump asked the lawmakers how they thought Pruitt was doing politically, the people said.
Also Wednesday, a top Pruitt ally at the EPA, Samantha Dravis, the associate administrator of the agency’s office of policy, resigned, according to an EPA official who asked for anonymity because the departure hadn’t yet been made public. Dravis came to the EPA after serving with Pruitt when she was general counsel of the Republican Attorneys General Association.
Meanwhile, conservative activists and industry allies
are mounting an aggressive campaign to keep Pruitt in his job.
CEOs are calling President Donald Trump to argue against firing the man they see as a champion of deregulation. Senators are warning that getting an equally business-friendly replacement confirmed won’t be easy. And aides have been booking him for a series of conservative-media appearances.
“We are very much in support of him and making it known,” said Tom Pyle, who heads the American Energy Alliance, an influential free-market advocacy group. “Obviously, he is an ideal administrator.”
The unusual campaign aims to overcome Trump’s inclination to dispatch top officials with little warning. Other recent departures — including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin — haven’t benefited from a similarly coordinated outpouring of external support.
At the same time, environmental groups are stepping up a “boot Pruitt” campaign on Twitter and opposition research.