Pruitt on shaky ground heading into hearings
WASHINGTON >> On the eve of critical hearings on Capitol Hill, top White House officials are intensifying efforts to document wasteful spending by Scott Pruitt as President Donald Trump weighs whether to keep supporting his controversial Environmental Protection Agency chief, senior administration officials said Wednesday.
According to the officials, White House budget director Mick Mulvaney has expanded an inquiry into the nearly $43,000 soundproof phone booth Pruitt had installed in his office to cover other costly expenditures, including tickets on first-class flights and stays at boutique hotels.
And the White House Counsel’s Office is examining allegations of unethical behavior, among them Pruitt’s decision to rent part of a Capitol Hill condo for $50 a night from a lobbyist and her husband, who had business before the agency.
EPA staffers are aiding both probes, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. Those investigations signal how uncertain Pruitt’s status is within the White House.
The administrator is expected to address the dizzying swirl of allegations today, when he is set to testify before two House panels about his agency’s budget. Several staffers said he was huddling privately with his closest aides on how to best answer non-budget questions. He has outlined plans to blame others for some of his most controversial decisions, such as the large pay raises given two staffers who moved with him from Oklahoma to Washington.
But even some supporters in Congress are growing impatient, with Republican lawmakers demanding greater accountability and telling Pruitt allies to stand down from praising him.
Sen. James Inhofe, ROkla., said in a statement Wednesday that he has “been pleased” with Pruitt’s work “rolling back regulations and restoring the EPA to its proper size and scope, but these latest reports are new to me. While I have no reason to believe they are true, they are concerning and I think we should hear directly from Administrator Pruitt about them.”
Inside the White House, the EPA chief has lost the backing of many senior aides, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, and communications officials, lawyers and Cabinet affairs officials, whose calls he ignores. He is not interested in “turning the page,” as one senior administration official put it Wednesday.