His relationship with Scott Pruitt and Oklahoma City’s Devon Energy prompted critical questions of Oklahoma Supreme Court Justice Patrick Wyrick during his U.S. Senate confirmation hearing to be a federal judge.
Democrats on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee were critical of Wyrick’s role in a 2014 incident where then-Attorney General Scott Pruitt used a Devon email and represented it as though he had written it in a legal maneuver with the EPA.
At the time, Wyrick wasa Oklahoma’s Solicitor General and worked in Pruitt’s office. As Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a longtime critic of Pruitt pointed out, it was Wyrick who received a draft letter from Devon.
Only 37 of the more than 1,000 words in the draft letter were changed by the attorney general’s office before it was sent to the EPA. The Devon lobbyist who sent the letter issued a congratulatory email to Wyrick called it “Outstanding!”
Wyrick’s answer to Whitehouse’s questions about the rewrite.
“As best I can recall, someone emailed me a draft letter. I’m a litigator. I handle litigation issues. I would have passed it on to thee appropriate person in the office who would have reviewed it and then action on that letter would have been taken by those people in the office.”
Justice Wyrick has a week to answer written questions from senators on the Judiciary Committee and a vote on his nomination will follow.