“I think he’s in real trouble.” US Senator on Scott Pruitt’s latest ethical issue.
Politicians believe Scott Pruitt could be on his way out at EPA following reports last week he had lived for several months in a Washington D-C condo co-owned by the wife of a top lobbyist for energy firms.
“I don’t know how you survive this one, and if he has to go, it’s because he never should have been there in the first place,” said Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey who was interviewed over the weekend on ABC’s “This Week” show.
He believes Pruitt is in deep trouble for what he did. So does Democratic U.S. Sen. Doug Jones of Alabama.
“I think he’s in real trouble. And I think it seems that he may be on his way out.”
Christie, who initially headed President Donald Trump‘s transition team until he was replaced in that lead role, was critical of how the transition played out.
“This was a brutally unprofessional transition,” Christie said. “This was a transition that didn’t vet people for this type of judgment issues.”
“The perception is not good at all,” the Democratic senator added. “People are just frustrated with, with cabinet members who seem to want to use taxpayer dollars to fund a life, their own personal lifestyle.”
ABC News reported last week that Pruitt, the former attorney general from Oklahoma, lived in his first six months in Washington, D.C. in a condo co-owned by Vicki Hart. Her husband is J. Steven Hart, chairman of a top D.C. lobbying firm and he is registered to lobby for several major environmental and energy companies.
Pruitt paid $50 a night for a single bedroom in the three-story brick building while other apartments in the same duplex rented for as much as $5,000 a month.
A spokeswoman for the EPA maintains there was no ethics breach in the housing arrangements for Pruitt.
“As EPA career ethics officials stated in a memo, Administrator Pruitt’s housing arrangement for both himself and family was not a gift and the lease was consistent with federal ethics regulations,” explained EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox.
Wilcox also released a statement from EPA Senior Counsel for Ethics Justina Fugh on Friday, saying she did not “conclude that this is a prohibited gift at all. It was a routine business transaction and permissible even if from a personal friend.” Wilcox did not say when Fugh reviewed the matter or what led her to look into it.
A second ethics review released by Kevin S. Minoli, a different EPA ethics official in the department’s legal office, also concluded “entering into the lease was consistent with federal ethics regulations regarding gifts, and use of the property in accordance with the lease agreement did not constitute a gift as defined by those regulations.”
