EPA chief Scott Pruitt, under fire for riding in first class out of security concerns, has faced four times more threats to him and his family than the preceding agency administrator.
What’s more, the EPA has opened some 70 probes into threats against the administrator and the agency in the past year, nearly double under former Obama-era Administrator Gina McCarthy.
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But in Washington the question has been are the threats enough to justify added security costs?
According to Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Patrick Sullivan, threats against Pruitt are up. He told E&E News, “He has had significantly more threats directed against him. There’s absolutely no question about it.”
And Pruitt has said that even his family is being threatened. “The quantity and the volume — as well as the type — of threats are different,” Pruitt told Bloomberg News. “What’s really disappointing to me as it’s not just me — it’s family.”
In interviews, Sullivan has suggested that some of those threatening Pruitt and EPA have “mental issues.”
But the media’s dislike of Pruitt’s policy moves might also be driving the threats. Some, for example, have pointed to a column on SFGate.com, part of the San Francisco Chronicle network, endorsing the threats.
“When you send death threats to the world and all who live on her, the world will, quite naturally, send them right back,” said a late October column that described Pruitt as a “pallid, oily anti-environment corporate shill.”
The escalation of death and other threats has led to Pruitt being granted a waiver to sit in first class on flights where safety is said to be better.
Still, he is under fire for the added costs of those flights and congressional Democrats are calling for a broader investigation into his travel.
Sullivan has extensive experience with threats and air travel, giving him a unique perspective when it comes to security.
According to his biography, he was deputy assistant director with the Transportation Security Administration’s Federal Air Marshal Service, supervised TSA’s participation in the Joint Terrorism Task Force program, the Federal Air Marshals’ intelligence program and the imbedding of Federal Air Marshals with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Customs and Border Protection, and was responsible for supervising TSA’s domestic and foreign law enforcement liaison activity.”
He wouldn’t detail the threats against Pruitt, but recently told CNN “They run the variety of direct death threats — ‘I’m going to put a bullet in your brain’ — to implied threats — ‘if you don’t classify this particular chemical in this particular way, I’m going to hurt you.”
And added, “There’s implied threats — like they say in New York, with the mafia: ‘If you come after me and my family, I’ll come after you and your family.’’
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
