Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called Monday for President Trump to fire EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “immediately” after a string of reports calling into question his ethics and use of taxpayer funds as head of the agency.
“If there was ever somebody that characterizes the swamp, it is Scott Pruitt,” Schumer said Monday on the Senate floor. “What Pruitt is doing is just incredible. In a relatively brief tenure at EPA, he’s amassed an embarrassing list of scandals.”
Pruitt has been engulfed over the past week by reports centering around a $50-per-night room owned by an energy lobbyist that he used until last summer, and his travel as EPA chief. However, Trump has stood up for Pruitt in recent days, by backing him on Twitter and saying on Saturday night that he is “doing a great job!”
Schumer argued that allowing Pruitt to stay would lower the standard for Cabinet officials and allow ethical standards to “deteriorate” under his watch.
“In supporting Administrator Pruitt, President Trump is lowering the bar for government ethics and accountability to the floor,” Schumer said. “How can the president with a straight face say he aims to drain the swamp when he allows a man like Pruitt to stay? How much will President Trump let standards for ethical conduct in his administration deteriorate? I say to President Trump the corruption and incompetence of this administration has reached a fever pitch.”
“President Trump: If you truly mean to drain the swamp — and it doesn’t seem that you do — you ought to fire Administrator Pruitt immediately,” Schumer said. “Accept his resignation and let him leave, which alone will clean up Washington in a way that Pruitt has not cleaned up our environment.”
Schumer’s call for Pruitt’s firing echoes that of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and a host of other Democrats who have been doing so in recent days.
