White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Wednesday that his office plans to investigate the $43,000 secure phone booth for Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.
The Government Accountability Office declared Monday morning that the EPA violated the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act because it spent more than $5,000 on the phone booth without notifying Congress.
The GAO also said the EPA violated the Antideficiency Act, a measure prohibiting federal agencies from spending government funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation.
“We take the antideficiency statute very, very seriously, and if they’ve been broken, we’ll follow the rules, we will enforce the law and we’ll do so in a transparent fashion,” Mulvaney, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers at a House Appropriations Committee hearing. “I’m not any happier about it than you are. I’m not interested in covering for anybody else.”
Meghan Burris, a spokeswoman for OMB, said the budget office is reviewing whether EPA committed “a potential Antideficiency Act violation.”
She told the Washington Examiner the investigation is “routine” and meant to ensure agencies “remain in compliance” with the law.
The new probe comes after White House press secretary Sarah Sanders has said repeatedly in recent weeks that the White House is probing Pruitt’s spending, including his $50-per-night condo lease agreement with the wife of an energy lobbyist.
Pruitt also spent more than $105,000 in first class travel in his first year. The Associated Press recently reported the EPA has spent about $3 million on Pruitt’s security, including travel and overtime pay for his round-the-clock security detail.
President Trump has declared Pruitt’s job is safe for now, and has commended him for his efforts in imposing a deregulatory agenda at the EPA.
But that isn’t stopping the scrutiny.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., on Friday demanded interviews with five top aides to Pruitt, escalating an investigation his committee is conducting over Pruitt’s spending and ethics.
