Strap In, It's Time For Your Daily Scott Pruitt Grift Roundup!
Ooooooh, SCARY!
OH, FFS! Your Snowflake EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is spending millions of dollars of money that was supposed to protect the environment to protect him from "threats." What kind of threats? Tell us, Buzzfeed.
One of the threats, made in March, consisted of someone drawing a mustache on Pruitt’s face on the cover of Newsweek and taping the magazine inside of an elevator at an EPA building. The case was closed due to a lack of an “overt threat” against Pruitt.
Well, that certainly justifies a $43,000 phone booth!
It's been a full 36 hours since we last wrote about the griftiest member of the griftiest administration in American history. So you know it's time for a CORRUPTION ROUNDUP! Yeehaw!
Making America Middle School Again
Remember when you got caught passing notes in the 7th grade, and your best defense was, "But Miss Crabapple, Mikayla copied Tiffany's homework!" My, what a terrible little narc you were.
In the last week, a member of Pruitt’s press team, Michael Abboud, has been shopping negative stories about Zinke to multiple outlets, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the efforts, as well as correspondence reviewed by The Atlantic.
“This did not happen, and it’s categorically false,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said.
The stories were shopped with the intention of “taking the heat off of Pruitt,” the sources said, in the aftermath of the EPA chief’s punishing congressional hearing last week.
Oh, Mikayla!
Glad to Have a Friend Like Hugh
Wingnut talkshow host Hugh Hewitt loves him some Scott Pruitt.
Not surprised in the least that environmental left and its allies in MSM targeting @EPAScottPruitt. He’s by far the most effective Cabinet member in advancing @realDonaldTrumpderegulation agenda. Only thing they fear more than Pruitt at EPA is Pruitt at DOJ. #CPP #WOTUS #CAFE .
— Hugh Hewitt (@hughhewitt) April 1, 2018
Is it because of Pruitt's dedication to despoiling the earth? Or is it because Hewitt's son James works at the EPA Press Office? Or could it be because it is just so awesome to have a friend who can fast-track your neighborhood Superfund clean-up?
In September, Hewitt emailed his good buddy Scott Pruitt asking about a Superfund site in Orange County, California. Minutes later Pruitt had scheduled a meeting on his super-secret calendar with the law firm Larson O'Brien. Which was mighty convenient for Hewitt, who lives in Orange County and is employed at Larson O'Brien. Politico reports,
Six weeks after that meeting, on Dec. 8, the Orange County North Basin site appeared on Pruitt’s list of 21 contaminated areas to address. A month later, Pruitt proposed listing the site on EPA’s National Priorities List, a move that could make it eligible for long-term federal cleanup funding from the federal government if the responsible polluters cannot be identified and forced to pay for its remediation.
Isn't that nice! So weird that they didn't want details of this meeting made public, though.
EPA never disclosed the meeting with Hewitt’s contacts. It was listed on Pruitt’s public calendar as a staff briefing. But on his private Outlook schedule, which the agency has released in response to lawsuits, it appeared as an “Orange County Superfund Site” meeting with Kelly and two other staffers. The records did not list the Californians in attendance at the meeting at EPA headquarters in Washington.
Lucky thing the New York Times sued the EPA to get Pruitt's calendar disclosed, and the Sierra Club did the world a solid and FOIA'd that mountain of records. Now, surely, Puerto Ricans and Flint residents will be able to get their projects on the top of the EPA's priority list, too!
Site of the Next Wonkette Happy Hour?
Check out this nice restaurant in Rome that Scott Pruitt's lobbyist buddy took him to. Pruitt reimbursed him eventually, while maintaining that it was totes fine to accept a $1,000/dinner from a lobbyist because they were such good buddies.
It's lucky poor Scotty had time to squeeze in a dinner at the famed Hotel Eden's rooftop bar when he was in Rome for only 48 hours and had a schedule packed with ... four whole hours of work, according to The Daily Beast. !
Anyway, get out your secret calendars, Wonkers! Let's meet there Saturday! Average dinner price is about $300, cool?
Hey, Mr. Pruitt! On a Scale of 1 to 10, How Awesome Is the President?
Did these morons think a FOIA was where you put the coat rack? They actually sent an email requesting that ranchers at Pruitt's "town hall" ask him what it's like to work with Donald Trump? What the hell did they think the New York Times was going to do with an email like that?
It was supposed to be a town hall meeting where Iowa ranchers could ask questions directly of Scott Pruitt, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency. But when the agency learned that anyone would be free to ask anything, they decided to script the questions themselves.
“My sincere apologies,” an E.P.A. official wrote to the rancher who would be moderating the event. “We cannot do open q&a from the crowd.” She then proposed several simple questions for him to ask Mr. Pruitt, including: “What has it been like to work with President Trump?”
Slow fucking clap for the geniuses surrounding Scott Pruitt at the EPA. And a giant round of applause for the Sierra Club, whose Freedom of Information Act suit kicked up 10,000 documents detailing the bottomless pit of grift at the EPA.
If Scott Pruitt Were a Horse ...
For the love of God, PUT THIS FUCKER OUT OF OUR MISERY! They've got that coal lobbyist waiting in the wings ready to take over for Pruitt and help polluters BE BEST. Why is Pruitt still here?
Well, if you believe CNN, it's because the White House knows they'll never get such a dedicated polluter confirmed again. Ronny Jackson's nomination to the VA crashed and burned, Gina Haspel is on the ropes in her bid to lead the CIA, and Democrats are in no mood to go easy on an EPA nominee in the leadup to the the midterms.
In an ironic way, those challenges have helped Pruitt. A senior administration official noted that even Mike Pompeo, who was previously confirmed by the Senate to run the CIA, faced headwinds in his recent confirmation vote to become secretary of state. A new EPA chief, the official noted, could face even stronger resistance in a narrowly divided Senate.
So the Scott Pruitt death watch drags on for yet another day.
OH, DID WE SAY DEATH WATCH? Great, now the damn EPA goon squad will be paying us a visit.
(It's not a threat, you fuckwits. It's an expression!)
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[ Buzzfeed / The Atlantic / Politico / The Daily Beast / / CNN ]
Pureed baby. On a bed of endive.
Something the rest of the world will learn to get along with long before we do.