Pruitt’s top communications official is leaving

WASHINGTON » Another high-level aide to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt is leaving the agency thisweek, as federal investigators continue to scrutinize the administrator’s spending and management decisions.

Liz Bowman, the agency’s top spokesman, is stepping down to become communications director for Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.

Her departure follows the exit of two other top Pruitt aides this week. Albert “Kell” Kelly, who was Pruitt’s banker in Oklahoma and hired to revitalize the agency’s Superfund program that cleans up toxic sites nationwide, resigned Tuesday.

So did Pasquale “Nino” Perrot ta, the head of Pruitt’s personal security team who has come under congressional scrutiny recently for unusual spending on Pruitt’s protective detail.

“I leave extremely thankful for the opportunity to serve the Trump Administration and Administrator Pruitt,” Bowman wrote in a statement. “Being a member of the EPA team ... has also provided me the opportunity to develop a new, and deep, respect for the public servants who serve the American people...”

Under Bowman, the EPA’s press shop aggressively defended Pruitt’s work.

After Hurricane Harvey hit Houston last year, the agency’s press office charged a D.C.-based jour- nalist at the Associated Press with “reporting from the comfort of Washington,” even though other AP reporters co-wrote the stories from Houston. The AP had reported on the flooding of toxic Superfund sites in the hurricane-hit city that EPA employees had not yet been physically able to visit.

In a statement at the time, Bowman accused the news wire service of “cherry-picking facts” and of practicing “yellow journalism.”