Scott Pruitt’s sin isn’t exactly original. But we should no more excuse him his trespasses than we excused those who trespassed before him.
Long before it came to light that the beleaguered EPA administrator rented a luxury condominium from the wife of an energy lobbyist, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner lived rent-free in a $3.5 million, six-bedroom Washington townhouse owned by his best friend later turned JPMorgan Chase executive Daniel Zelikow.
That was eight years ago, and it seemed like everybody knew about the not-so-secret crash pad.
The Washington Post first reported on the Geithner living situation and wrote, somewhat incredulously, that the secretary demonstrated “a model of frugality.” It was all on the up-and-up, his spokesman insisted, because his lawyers had “determined that the arrangement is appropriate under ethics laws.”
And so for almost a year, Geithner was next-door neighbors with the ambassador of Monaco and near the neighborhood of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. It only became a problem when it came to light that the treasury bailed out JP Morgan to the tune of $25 billion around the same time Geithner was living comfortably in the house and lounging around the pool of a top Wall Street muckety-muck.
The episode is eerily similar to the Pruitt situation. While that conservative actually paid rent ($50 a night or $1,500 per month), the arrangement was equally suspect. The New York Times reports that Pruitt met with his lobbyist landlord, and that the EPA was lobbied by that lobbyist landlord’s law firm.
It is easy to imagine that Pruitt was skewered especially because of his politics. But the motivations of his enemies are immaterial to the facts. It was wrong when Pruitt rent from an energy lobbyist, and it was wrong when Geithner shacked up with a bank executive.
Neither broke any laws per se, and both have lawyers who said the living arrangements were above board. But as a general rule, it would seem that grown men in control of burgeoning government agencies shouldn’t bunk with special interests. Congress should pass a law or something.
