It’s not just the condo: Scott Pruitt is facing multiple audits from multiple government watchdogs.
The pressure on Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is building as inauspicious details keep emerging about his activities in office and his life outside it.
The allegations of luxury travel, a sweetheart housing deal with a lobbyist, and Pruitt’s use of a loophole to get raises for two close aides aren’t trivial. They could be serious violations of ethics, if not the law.
And government watchdog investigators are now systematically building a paper trail of Pruitt’s time at the EPA. The New York Times reported this week that David Apol of the Office of Government Ethics, the top ethics official in the federal government, took the unusual step of writing a letter to the EPA’s head of ethics, Kevin Minoli.
The letter asks Minoli to investigate potential ethics violations in Pruitt’s $50-a-night condo deal with an energy lobbyist; his lavish travel, security, and personnel expenses; and his retaliation against staffers who objected.
“If true, it is hard to imagine any action that could more effectively undermine an agency’s integrity than punishing or marginalizing employees who strive to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations that safeguard that integrity,” Apol wrote.
The Government Accountability Office and the EPA’s inspector general are also poring over records at the agency. And lawmakers, including some Republicans, are demanding answers.
“It gets worse every time there’s a report in the news,” said House Oversight Committee Chair Trey Gowdy (R-SC) at a book signing on Saturday. “I don’t have a lot of patience for that kind of stuff.”
It’s also creating anxiety at the White House over what else may turn up. The Daily Beast reported that President Donald Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly told Pruitt in no uncertain terms that the scandals need to stop.
The investigations will likely take months to complete, but the verdicts could change Pruitt’s standing in the White House and his future in government.
Here is a list based on the best information we could gather of many of the investigations into his time in office:
The EPA’s Office of the Inspector General audits and investigates potential wrongdoing at the agency. Though it’s part of the EPA, Congress appropriates its budget separately to give it independence.
The IG’s office confirmed to Vox that four audits related to Pruitt are underway:
There are other audits gaining momentum as well:
The GAO’s key responsibility is to keep track of how the government spends money, so it makes sense that the agency is very interested in what’s going on at the EPA.
And some on Capitol Hill want more from the GAO.
The House Oversight Committee is also investigating Pruitt’s travels and housing arrangements. Chair Gowdy said in a letter yesterday that he’s not happy with how the agency has cooperated with the inquiry.
Meanwhile, three House Republicans have called on Pruitt to resign, while two senators have publicly come to his defense. At the same time, the administrator’s allies in the fossil fuel sector and among conservative groups are rallying the troops to keep him in office, scrambling to justify his massive security detail and to brush off audits as a political ploy. (The White House has launched its own investigation into Pruitt’s condo deal as well.)
By the time these audits yield tangible results (it could be months), some of the pressure on Pruitt is likely to have dissipated. But environmentalists are energized and some Democrats smell blood in the water, so they aren’t likely to let this go and will continue asking for more inquiries.
And come November, the balance of power may shift in Congress. So the White House will have to weigh whether Pruitt can still advance the ball for the Trump agenda against the obstinate questions about his ethics.
