In what many have to see as a stunning blind eye to the massive ethical corruption of Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump Saturday evening posted a tweet delivering the embattled EPA administrator the greater gift he could ever hope for: compliments and pity.
Pruitt for weeks has been under increasing fire for spending unprecedented amounts of taxpayer money of his travel installing security equipment that has made many wonder about his mental fitness, and entered into a clearly unethical low-cost living arrangement.
Trump just telegraphed that corruption within his administration will be not only tolerated, but applauded.
“While Security spending was somewhat more than his predecessor, Scott Pruitt has received death threats because of his bold actions at EPA. Record clean Air & Water while saving USA Billions of Dollars. Rent was about market rate, travel expenses OK. Scott is doing a great job!”
He also lied.
Pruitt’s security spending is not “somewhat more than his predecessor,” it is exponentially more than his predecessors. Likely more than all of them combined day-for-day, at this point in his tenure.
There is not record clean air and water – and no one, not Scott Pruitt or anyone else, could enact regulations that would work that fast. The key word there is regulations: which Pruitt has been rescinding, not enacting. He is literally helping to make Americans sick, and the president is lying by claiming anything else.
Rent was not “market rate” when you factor in that Pruitt didn’t have to pay for nights not there, didn’t have to furnish the condo, didn’t have to pay for electricity, heat, or hot water, cable TV, telephone service, etc.
UPDATE: The AP reports “total security costs approached $3 million.”
“Pruitt’s ambitious domestic and international travel led to rapidly escalating costs, with the security detail racking up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000,” The Associated Press reported Friday. “The demands of providing 24-hour coverage even meant taking some investigators away from field work, such as when Pruitt traveled to California for a family vacation.”
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Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license