Deroy Murdock
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been hounded lately by
allegations of rich spending and poor judgment. While he could have detonated
himself during recent congressional-oversight hearings, the former Oklahoma
prosecutor seems to have survived those tests. Nonetheless, EPA’s inspector
general, the Government Accountability Office, and various congressional
panels continue to
probe Pruitt’s official conduct. While Pruitt has plenty for
which to answer, on at least three key counts, he seems to be cleaner than his
critics claim.
Pruitt’s foes have attacked him for allocating too
much on bodyguards. Senator Tom Udall (D-NM) slammed Pruitt for “taking 30
EPA enforcement officers away from investigating polluters to serve as his
round-the-clock personal security detail.” The Associate Press counts 20, not
30, in Pruitt’s full-time protective detail. Its cost, AP reports,
“approached $3 million when pay is added in travel expenses.”
But an August 16 EPA report suggests that Pruitt’s
personal-defense outlays are fueled by genuine safety concerns rather
than self-aggrandizement. This document cites 14 threats against Pruitt and his family in Fiscal Year
2017. Among them:
* Pruitt’s daughter has been menaced via Facebook.
e.g., “I hope your father dies soon, suffering as your mother watches in
horror for hours on end.”
* An e-mail sent to the
Washington, D.C. office of Senator James Lankford (R -
Oklahoma) threatened to assassinate Pruitt, President Trump, and Vice
President Pence.
* One message to EPA said, “I
hope your head administrator (Scott Pruitt), dies a very painful and horrible
death through poisoning. Please explain the scientific method to this freaking
neanderthal [sic].”
* Another spooky character
stated via Twitter, “Pruitt, I am gonna find you and put a bullet between
your eyes. Don’t even think I’m joking. I’m planning this.”
* A postcard sent to Pruitt read,
“Get out while you still can, Scott, you are evil incarnate you ignorant fuck.”
* “Dear Mr. Pruitt,” another
postcard began. “CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL!! We are watching you. For the sake of
our planet, our children & our grandchildren, will you be a reasonable man?
I repeat, we are watching you! Myrna, Michele, Chris, Signe, Lucy, Olivia and
Isabel.”
* A trespasser entered EPA
headquarters on March 6, CBS News reported. He claimed to be a student
attending a “Microsoft event,” said EPA Assistant Inspector General Patrick
Sullivan. “The person asked about Scott Pruitt and wanted to know
where Pruitt’s office was and if Pruitt ever walked in the hallway outside the
room.” Although the intruder was escorted off the premises, he later
phoned an employee’s office number and left voicemails in which he
said, as Sullivan explained, “he can gain entry into EPA space anytime he wants.”
* Not content simply to write,
one critic showed up in person. An EPA sentry stopped him. “During the
confrontation, the subject was able to acquire the security officer’s duty
weapon and discharge a round into a nearby chair.” The guard disarmed the
visitor, who later was indicted for assaulting a federal officer/employee.
These and other concrete provocations justify
Pruitt’s focus on security. The Left’s hatred of President Donald J. Trump
and his supporters, including Pruitt, is incandescent. One cannot fault
Pruitt’s caution, especially after James T. Hodgkinson, a Bernie Sanders
campaign volunteer, shot and nearly
killed Rep. Steve Scalise (R - Louisiana) and
four others at the GOP congressional baseball team’s practice last June in
Alexandria, Virginia.
Just a few days ago, Miami-Dade Police arrested Jonathan
Oddi. Officers say they nabbed Oddi after he fired gunshots in the lobby of the
Trump National Doral, one of the chief executive’s golf resorts. Miami-Dade
Police Director Juan Perez said Oddi shouted “anti-Trump, President Trump rhetoric.”
A similar attack that maimed or killed Pruitt – and
perhaps EPA personnel and innocent bystanders – is hardly fanciful. Such a
scenario is worth devoting resources to prevent.
Also under review: Pruitt’s 2017 housing arrangements in
Washington, DC. Pruitt’s accusers claim he got a special, below-cost deal
in some sort of bed-for-bribe swap. Had Pruitt been billeted for
pennies in a Georgetown townhouse or an Embassy Row mansion, these worries
would be legitimate. However, Pruitt rented a room in a Capitol Hill
condominium and paid only for the evenings when he actually slept
there. He shelled out $50 per night, equal to $1,500 per month. According to
Pruitt’s lease, “Enjoyment is limited to one bedroom that cannot be
locked. All other space is controlled by the landlord.”
In an April 4 EPA memorandum, Designated Agency
Ethics Official Kevin S. Minoli stated that “within a six-block radius” of
Pruitt’s crash pad, there were “seven (7) private bedrooms that could be rented
for $55 or less/day.” Minoli, who also is EPA’s principal deputy general
counsel, also found 38 such rooms “across a broader section of Capitol Hill.”
As a result of its research, Minoli explained, “the ethics office
estimated $50/day to be a reasonable market value of the use authorized by the
terms of the lease. As such, the use of the property according to the terms of
the lease would not constitute a gift under the Federal ethics regulations.”
No gift, no graft.
Some also have fretted about the fact that this property
is owned by energy lobbyist Steven Hart and his wife Vicki. Pruitt
told the Washington Examiner that they were old friends from
Oklahoma. “I’ve known him for years,” Pruitt said. “He’s the outside counsel
for the National Rifle Association, has no clients that are before this agency,
nor does his wife have any clients that have appeared before this agency.”
Pruitt reportedly requested and was given multiple
extensions on his lease until last summer. Having overstayed his welcome, the
Harts eventually asked Pruitt to make way for an incoming renter. The Harts
changed the locks behind Pruitt. If this couple wanted to curry special favor
with the EPA chief, this seems like a rather fruitless strategy.
It’s no surprise that these and other actions by Pruitt
are under a microscope. For many on the Left, battling so-called “global
warming” borders on religion. As they see it, the science is “settled,” this
creed is beyond debate, and the heretics who question this faith should
be jailed,
as Bill Nye the Science Guy has suggested, or executed,
as University of Graz, Austria Professor Richard Parncutt has proposed.
Someone like Pruitt, who rejects manmade-global-warmist
alarmism and is powerful enough to implement his ideas (e.g. persuading
President Trump to junk Obama’s Clean Power Plan and withdraw America from
the Paris Climate Treaty) embodies the Left’s worst nightmares. To the
warmists, Pruitt is a torch-bearing arsonist, scurrying maliciously
through their Vatican. And he must be stopped.
Even if Pruitt winds up scot-free, his situation should
serve as a cautionary tale for every member of Team Trump – from the president
on down: Their margin of error is thinner than Saran Wrap. President Trump and
all who work for him should act as if their every action and utterance were
being broadcast live on MSNBC, with Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Joe
Scarborough offering scathing, bitter and unforgiving commentary. No one on
Team Trump ever will get the benefit of the doubt. When the First Lady
gets slammed, even for unveiling an anti-cyberbullying initiative, it is safe
to assume that everyone in this administration will be scrutinized with
the deepest suspicions.
As much as these actions
by Scott Pruitt can be defended, these days require an even
higher level of purity. It may be as physically unobtainable as 250-proof
alcohol. Regardless, and unfair as it may be, this must be the ideal
to which every member of the Trump Administration, the
Republican Congress, and pretty much each American conservative must
aspire.
Deroy Murdock is a Manhattan-based Fox News Contributor.
This article originally appeared on Townhall.com.
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