A report by an internal watchdog of the Environmental Protection Agency contends two high-ranking Trump political appointments engaged in fraudulent payroll activities, including payments to employees after they were fired and to one official when he was absent from work.
The report by the EPA’s Office of Inspector General claims it cost the agency more than $130,000 due to the actions of former chief of staff Ryan Jackson and former White House liaison Charles Munoz. Jackson is a former aide to Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and left the EPA in February 2020 to become vice president for government and political affairs at the National Mining Association.
The Associated Press reported the two allegedly submitted “official timesheets and personnel forms that contained materially false, fictitious, and fraudulent statements.” The IG had been investigating the issue for more than two years as OK Energy Today reported in 2019.
Jackson worked more than a decade for Sen. Inhofe and had been staff director of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee that Inhofe once chaired. He was hired at the EPA by former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt when Pruitt was Administrator in 2017 as OK Energy Today reported at the time.
Jackson was part of the team that helped guide Pruitt through the Senate confirmation process.
Previously, Jackson was also legislative director and chief of staff in Inhofe’s personal office. He was also an assistant district attorney in Oklahoma and served as an associate director for the Oklahoma Farm Bureau.