Trump defends Pruitt, but more questions arise

WASHINGTON — White House officials sounded increasingly doubtful Thursday about the future of embattled Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, even as President Donald Trump appeared to throw him a public lifeline.

Speaking Thursday to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump used a series of superlatives to describe Pruitt.

“I think he’s done an incredible job,” Trump said. “He’s been very courageous. It hasn’t been easy, but I think he’s done a fantastic job. I think he’ll be fine. “

That was contrasted by more-tepid remarks earlier from White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley.

“They say we all serve at the pleasure of the president,” Gidley told reporters. “The president himself said he had confidence (in Pruitt), and so that’s where we stand today.”

Pruitt has been under fire amid numerous ethics questions, including his rental of a Capitol Hill condo with ties to a fossil-fuels lobbyist.

A review of Pruitt’s ethical conduct by White House officials is underway, adding to other probes being conducted by congressional committees and the EPA’s inspector general into spending on luxury air travel and unusual security precautions.

The New York Times reported that at least five EPA officials were reassigned or demoted after pushing back against spending requests that included a $100,000-a-month private jet membership, a bulletproof vehicle and $70,000 to replace two desks in the administrator’s office suite. None of those purchases was approved.

CBS News reported that the head of Pruitt’s security detail was demoted last year after the career employee refused the administrator’s demand to use the lights and sirens on his EPA vehicle to get him through D.C. traffic faster.

Meanwhile, an EPA ethics official said he wasn’t provided all of the relevant “factual information” before determining last week that Pruitt’s $50-a-night rental was not an ethics violation. Kevin Minoli said his finding that Pruitt was paying fair-market value was based on the assumption that Pruitt occupied only one bedroom for $50 a night. But media reports later disclosed that Pruitt’s daughter occupied a second bedroom while she interned at the White House last summer.