If EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt thought his problems over his confirmation hearing were finished, they are not. He has been named in a complaint filed with the Oklahoma Bar Association accusing him of violating the Oklahoma Rule of Professional Conduct.
The complaint was filed this week by Kristen van de Biezenbosk, an Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma School of Law and also by the Center for Biological Diversity through an attorney in Portland, Oregon. The two contend Pruitt was dishonest when he told the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Services that he only used official email when he carried out business as the Attorney General of Oklahoma. It was later discovered through an Open Records Act request that Pruitt had used personal email on occasion.
The two complainants stated, “the Office of General Counsel should commence an investigation into whether these events constitute violations of the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct……Indeed, it appears Mr. Pruitt misrepresented material facts that bore on the Senate Committee’s analysis of Mr. Pruitt’s fitness to serve EPA Administrator.”
The law professor and the Center also want the Bar to investigate Pruitt for failing to mention he made public speeches and presentations on energy and the environment at a Four Star Leadership event in 2014 and another the same year before the Federalist Society at the National Press Club.
Similar questions and allegations were raised in a March 17 letter by five Democrats on the Committee. Senators Tom Carper, Bernie Sanders, Sheldon Whitehouse, Edward Markey and Tammy Duckworth wrote Pruitt asking him to correct the record concerning his use of personal email address to conduct official state business.
