Pruitt resigns amid torrent of ethics woes
Scott Pruitt resigned as EPA administrator on Thursday, finally bowing to a wave of spending, travel and secrecy scandals that have ended his tenure as one of President Donald Trump’s most aggressive anti-regulatory enforcers. Trump went on to praise the head of the embattled EPA. even after the ax fell — and months after most of his White House aides, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, were angered by increasingly bizarre allegations that Pruitt used agency workers for housing, creams, used mattresses and to get dinner. Vatican cardinal and job for his wife.
But the news about Pruitt has also become regulatory more dangerous, including what congressional Democrats said Thursday was evidence that his top aides had altered his official EPA calendar to hide politically disturbing meetings. Meanwhile, the media frenzy surrounding Trump’s soon-to-be-announced Supreme Court nomination should soon erase any fleeting news of Pruitt’s departure.
“Scott has done an outstanding job at the agency, and for that I will always be grateful. … We have made tremendous progress and the future is very bright for EPA!” Trump tweeted, adding that Andrew Wheeler, Pruitt’s deputy, will serve as administrator. Trump later told reporters that Pruitt’s decision to resign was “not the final straw.”
“Look, Scott’s a great guy,” the president said. ” and said, “I have a lot of confidence in the administration. I do not want to be a burden.” And I think Scott felt he was a distraction.” Trump said the decision had been in the works for “a couple of days. “Pruitt’s critics mostly cheered — though they were deeply suspicious of Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist widely expected to pursue the same plan to dismantle former President Barack Obama’s climate change program.
“Thank God he’s gone,” Sen. Tom Carper, the top Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, said of Pruitt. “This is a day to celebrate.” Among Trump’s confidants, Oklahoma billionaire oilman Harold Hamm was one of a dwindling number of people who defended Pruitt, people close to Hamm and the White House told POLITICO.
Thursday’s move came just two days after POLITICO reported that Pruitt had asked a former treasurer of Pruitt’s super PAC to lead the office tasked with releasing public records, and after CNN reported that Pruitt directly asked Trump to remove Attorney General Jeff Sessions. and give him position. Those were just some of the latest damaging allegations against Pruitt this week, after months of drip-drip revelations about a lobbyist’s wife’s $50-a-room Capitol Hill apartment. night, first-class travel and dramatic consumption increases. about safety and the unpaid personal work he received from EPA aides. (See POLITICO’s running summary of Pruitt’s debates here.)
