Scott Pruitt’s time leading the Environmental Protection Agency may be over, but his name will live on for several more weeks in the more than a dozen federal investigations into ethical misconduct that are expected to conclude next month.
The EPA’s Office of Inspector General has been conducting at least twelve probes into Pruitt’s excessive spending on travel and security, along with his decisions to fire staffers who questioned his judgment on spending and to use senior staff as headhunters to find his wife work.
It’s not clear whether the IG’s reports will mean anything for Pruitt other than more embarrassment. Democrats are hoping some of his unethical actions constitute a criminal offense, but that won’t be known until the reports are out.
Still, the pressure is mounting to ensure Pruitt can’t just retire his way out of trouble. A group of House Democrats had asked the Justice Department last month to conduct an investigation into whether Pruitt’s interactions with a lobbyist should lead to criminal charges.
Specifically, they wanted officials to probe Pruitt’s $50-a-night lease of a Capitol Hill condo tied to a lobbyist. The lobbyist in question represented clients with pending work before EPA.
They also wanted officials to look into Pruitt’s decision to direct a senior staffer to ask a Chick-fil-A executive about securing a franchise for his wife. Federal law prohibits the use of federal employees by Cabinet officials in outside ventures, especially when those ventures result in a financial or other gain for the official.
Many of these issues will be taken up by the inspector general, who is preparing to release the probes in the coming weeks. The head of the federal ethics office sent a letter last month asking EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins to add these and other allegations to his list of Pruitt investigations and to wrap up all investigations into Pruitt soon.
“We ask you to complete your report, as soon as possible, so that we can decide whether to begin a formal corrective action proceeding in order to make a formal recommendation to the President,” wrote David Apol, the head of the independent Office of Government Ethics.
The Government Accountability Office said in April that Pruitt did violate the law when it came to a $43,000 soundproof booth he had installed in his office. EPA did not inform Congress of the expenditure as it is required to do for items that cost more than $5,000.
More recently, allegations surrounding Pruitt’s use of a “secret” calendar from which he often deleted entries retroactively could have violated a number of federal rules and laws governing the tampering of documents.
The New York Times reported Thursday, just minutes before Trump announced the resignation, that Madeline G. Morris, Pruitt’s senior scheduler, was fired last summer after she raised objections about the deletions, which she believed to be illegal.
There is also the related issue of firing a government official who has knowledge of an ethical violation or illegality.
These issues are not being ignored by the GOP in the House and Senate.
House Oversight Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., launched an investigation into Pruitt in April when allegations of ethical violations first came up. In the weeks leading up to Pruitt’s resignation, Gowdy held closed hearings with former EPA staff to discuss Pruitt’s behavior.
Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, which oversees EPA, had raised concerns with Senate appropriators last month to ensure EPA’s IG had enough funding to get through the probes and finish other work.
Barrasso scheduled Pruitt to testify at a hearing in his committee in August to coincide with the release of a number of Elkins’ investigations, say aides.
“The hearing will give senators the opportunity to ask important questions and hear about the work being done at the agency,” Barrasso said in a statement last month. The exact date of the hearing was going to be announced later.
It’s not clear how the committee will react to Pruitt’s sudden departure. On Thursday, Barrasso’s office said the committee “doesn’t have any scheduling announcements to make today.”
