Scott Pruitt "The Kato Kaelin Of Capitol Hill"

Cheap, lying, corrupt, paranoid, self- aggrandizing, right- wing ideologue -- and a deadbeat to boot:

Prior to [EPA Administrator Scott] Pruitt’s arrival in Washington, Steve Hart — an energy lobbyist who, like Pruitt, is a native Oklahoman — had been a friend and supporter of the EPA administrator. He and his wife, a health care lobbyist, viewed the six-week living arrangement as a favor for a friend. 

They drew up a lease running from February through April 1, 2017, said the people familiar with it, in order to make sure neither they nor Pruitt ran afoul of ethics rules, which prohibit political appointees from accepting gifts from lobbyists. Under the terms of that lease, Pruitt paid a cut rate of $50 per night to stay in the condominium. 

That favor turned into a headache for the couple when Pruitt repeatedly asked to extend his lease. “There were gentle questions regarding, OK, when are you going to leave and what have you ... and they even started sending him ads of places close by that he could rent,” said the first person. 

“Scott Pruitt is the Kato Kaelin* of Capitol Hill. He is the long-term house guest who takes advantage of his hosts and refuses to take a hint about when it’s time to leave,” the second person said. 

A spokesman for Pruitt did not immediately reply to a request for comment. 

The Harts eventually told Pruitt, who had to be reminded repeatedly to pay his rent, that they had plans to rent the room to somebody else — and that he needed to find another place to live, according to the people familiar with events. They also informed him in early August that they were changing the locks on their door. (our emphasis)

Here's a thought:  perhaps someone who reportedly wants Pruitt out =cough= John Kelly =cough= should follow suit and send him help wanted ads, and if that fails, have the locks changed on Pruitt's EPA suite.

(*Link for anyone not familiar with the name Kato Kaelin, the eternal houseguest.)

(h/t Mock Paper Scissors)

(Photo: The fingers are all pointing to you, Kato, er, Scott.)

Is Scott Pruitt's Toxic EPA Tenure About To End?

No less an expert in scandals than former New Jersey Gov. Chris "Krispycreme" Christie opined on the fate of EPA Administrator mortician Scott "Swamp Thang" Pruitt after only his most recent ethical/ legal fail:

CHRISTIE: Listen, 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.

"[T]his one" refers to Swamp Thang's sweetheart Capitol Hill townhouse rental from the wife of a lobbyist for the only liquefied natural gas plant in the U.S.  Liquefied natural gas is odorless, so what's that smell, you ask:

[T]he first sign of trouble came when Pruitt took a first-class trip to Morocco late last year – it cost $40,000 and you paid for it – in order to have the EPA chief pitch “the potential benefit of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports on Morocco’s economy.” 

Why the head of the EPA would make economic energy recommendations to foreign countries was unclear. The answer, however, soon after seemed to come into focus.

The only LNG export plant in the country hired a lobbyist, and Scott Pruitt lived in a Capitol Hill condo – for $50 a night, far below market value – in the Capitol Hill home owned by the lobbyist’s wife. (our emphasis)

Someone posing as an "ethics" official at EPA has said this was all above board because, yes, if you pro rated the $50 across a 30- day month, it would have been $1,500 -- "fair market rate!" * That may seem like a princely sum to most, but on Capitol Hill, that wouldn't be fair market rate for a doghouse (fleas negotiable).  Here's a pic of the place that could be had for $50 a day, if you're an EPA Administrator willing to shill for your landlady's husband's business:


(via ABC News)

Swamp Thang is nothing if not a serial abuser. Media Matters has a helpful timeline of Pruitt's scandals prior to to rentgate.  Here are a few lowlights:

February 24, 2017, KOKH: Pruitt lied to senators about his use of a private email account. An investigation by Oklahoma City Fox affiliate KOKH revealed that Pruitt lied during his Senate confirmation hearing when he said he did not use a private email account to conduct official business while he was attorney general of Oklahoma, a finding later confirmed by the office of the attorney general. The Oklahoma Bar Association subsequently opened an investigation into the matter, which could lead to Pruitt being disbarred in the state of Oklahoma. [snip] 

August 28, 2017, E&E News: Pruitt gave a Superfund job to a failed banker whose bank had given loans to Pruitt. In May, Pruitt appointed Albert “Kell” Kelly to head a task force on the EPA’s Superfund program, even though Kelly had been fined $125,000 by federal banking regulators and banned for life from banking activity because of misdeeds committed when he was CEO of Oklahoma-based SpiritBank. Kelly had no previous experience working on environmental issues and, as ThinkProgress reported in February 2018, he had a financial stake in Phillips 66, an oil company that the EPA had deemed responsible for contaminating areas in Louisiana and Oregon. In previous years, Kelly’s bank had given a loan to Pruitt to purchase a share in a minor league baseball team and provided acquisition financing when the team was sold. The bank had also provided three mortgage loans to Pruitt and his wife, as The Intercept reported in December. [snip] 

September 26, 2017, Wash. Post: Pruitt spent almost $25,000 on a private soundproof booth. The EPA spent nearly $25,000 to construct a secure, soundproof communications booth in Pruitt’s office, even though there was another such booth on a different floor at EPA headquarters. No previous EPA administrators had such a setup, the Post reported. UPDATE: On March 14, the Post reported that the EPA spent more than $18,000 on the prep work required to install Pruitt’s booth, which put the booth’s total cost “closer to $43,000.” [snip] 

February 11, 2018, Wash. Post: Pruitt spent $90,000 on first-class flights and other travel in a single week. During a stretch in early June, Pruitt racked up at least $90,000 in taxpayer-funded travel costs, including first-class, business-class, and military flights. The figure did not include the cost of Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail accompanying him on those trips. One first-class flight was for an overnight trip to New York, where Pruitt made two media appearances to praise Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris agreement. According to the Post, “[EPA] records show that wherever Pruitt’s schedule takes him, he often flies first or business class, citing unspecified security concerns.” The chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Trey Gowdy (R-SC), demanded documentation and explanation for Pruitt’s first- and business-class work travel, but Pruitt missed the chairman’s March 6 deadline to turn over documents. 

February 13, 2018, CBS News: Pruitt flew luxury business class on a foreign airline. Pruitt broke with government rules requiring employees to fly on U.S. carriers. He got a waiver to return home from Milan, Italy, in June on Emirates Airline in what CBS described as “one of the world’s most luxurious business class cabins.”

And that's only a small sample of what Swamp Thang has been up to, mis- using taxpayer dollars, gutting environmental laws and regulations, all the while selling himself (and us) to the highest bidder.  He'd have been "locked up" long ago in a "normal" administration. But, in President Spanky's, he's par for the course.

(* As friend P.E.C. clarifies in the comments, Swamp Thang only paid the $50 on nights he spent in the townhouse - such a deal!)

(Photo:  EPA's Howdy Doody Swamp Thang)

The Great Dismantling

While incompetent narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump distracts with his inane feuds and obsessions (see post below), the true believers in his dystopian regime are busy doing the work of Putin, the Kochs and Mercers: dismantling the federal government, the main counterbalance to their fascistic power grabbing. Here are some links to follow:

Rex "Rexxon" Tillerson, Ayn Rand fan, Putin pal and owner of Putin's Order of Friendship medal, is using "reorganization" and "cost- cutting" as excuses to gut the State Department and ax hundreds of senior Foreign Service officers, weakening American "soft power" (to whose benefit?). Some are taking note:

In a letter to Mr. Tillerson last week, Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee, citing what they said was “the exodus of more than 100 senior Foreign Service officers from the State Department since January,” expressed concern about “what appears to be the intentional hollowing-out of our senior diplomatic ranks.” 

Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Democrat of New Hampshire, sent a similar letter, telling Mr. Tillerson that “America’s diplomatic power is being weakened internally as complex global crises are growing externally.” [snip] 

His small cadre of aides have fired some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted or taking away their duties altogether. Among those fired or sidelined were most of the top African-American and Latino diplomats, as well as many women, difficult losses in a department that has long struggled with diversity.

Scott "Screw It" Pruitt, fossil fuel industry stooge, is combining a little old fashioned corruption with his efforts to neuter the Environmental Protection Agency:

Earlier this month, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt fired all board members who currently receive EPA grants for their research, saying they cannot remain objective if they accept agency money. In replacing them, Pruitt transformed the board from a panel of the nation’s top environmental experts to one dominated by industry-funded scientists and state government officials who have fought federal regulations. 

Pruitt removed 21 members of the advisory board, mostly academics, and replaced them with 16 experts with ties to industries regulated by the agency and two with no industry ties. Fourteen of the new members consult or work for the fossil fuel or chemical industries, which gave Pruitt nearly $320,000 for his campaigns in Oklahoma as a state senator and attorney general. 

Sleepy Ben Carson, at the neglected and abused Department of Housing and Urban Development, is okay with billions of dollars in budget cuts and wants to protect big banks from penalties on mortgage loan "errors."  Here's a long read about how this cypher is going about both passively and actively dismantling an agency whose primary constituency is low- and middle- income Americans.

You've got industry insider Ajit Pai at the Federal Communications Commission on the verge of ending net neutrality and opening the door to mega- corporation political manipulation of what you see on the Internet.

Billionaire Bible- thumper Betsy DeVos, one of the most incompetent yet dangerous Rump appointments, is moving like a wrecking ball through the Department of Education, with her agenda of turning America's public education system into a welter of religious "private" schools (at taxpayer expense, of course). She also wants colleges and universities to have more freedom to ignore claims of sexual assault. On top of all that, of course, she wants to gut the Department by gutting its budget, which was even a bridge too far for some Senate Republicans.

That, as they say, is the tip of the iceberg.  Trumpkins below the secretarial level are busy hollowing out key functions and checks on the industries they're supposedly regulating. Perhaps sensing that they have limited time before a reckoning at the polls, these sociopaths are determined to wreak as much permanent damage, both domestically and internationally, as they possibly can.

Flying High On The Taxpayer's Dime (UPDATED)

Various watchdogs are now looking into the champagne travel costs of three of neo- fascist incompetent Donald "Rump" Trump's well- heeled cabinet members:  EPA's Scott "Screw It" Pruitt, HHS's Tom "For Sale At Any" Price, and Treasury's Steve "Moochin'" Mnuchin.

As EPA's Pruitt methodically cuts EPA staff and budget in service to the fossil fuel industry, he's not so careful about taxpayer money when it comes to his well- cushioned ass (our emphasis throughout):

Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency chief, has been criticized for his frequent travels back to Oklahoma, where the former state attorney general is discussed as a possible candidate for governor. Although he has mostly flown commercial, the high-priced fares suggest he was probably not traveling coach. 

In the latest development, the EPA confirmed Wednesday that Pruitt flew in a private jet round trip from Denver to Durango, Colo. He also reportedly flew a military plane from Cincinnati to New York. 

Separately, the EPA — which has also been targeted for deep budget cuts — is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Pruitt’s round-the-clock security detail.

Mnuchin, the infamous foreclosure king of California, is also facing questions about using private jets for public business:

Mnuchin, a former Wall Street executive and Hollywood producer worth as much as $350 million, married Scottish actress Louise Linton in June at Trump International Hotel near the White House. He requested an Air Force jet for his honeymoon to Scotland, France and Italy. His office said he needed access to secure communications during the trip but withdrew the request after finding another option. 

Mnuchin did take a military jet last month from New York to Washington, saying once again he needed a secure phone line. The Aug. 15 flight cost at least $25,000, ABC News reported. 

HHS's Price, however, is determined to make his fellow hypocrites look like pikers when it comes to bilking taxpayers:

Price’s trips on chartered jets could prove more problematic. He has called for deep spending and staffing cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, including a $6-billion reduction at the National Institutes of Health, opening him to charges of both poor judgment and hypocrisy. 

Politico has documented 26 flights by Price on private charter planes at taxpayer expense since early May, estimating the cost at more than $400,000. It found frequent, low-cost airline flights on some of the routes he took, as well as train fares as low as $72 for a trip between Washington and Philadelphia — as opposed to about $25,000 for his charter. 

Two of Price’s private jet trips paid for by the government were to places where he owns property — St. Simons Island, Ga., and Nashvile, Politico reported Tuesday. A department spokesman said Price conducted official business and visited family members and colleagues.

The ethically challenged Price, you may recall, was involved in shady insider stock trades when he was a Congressman from Georgia writing legislation to benefit those companies.  He was confirmed anyway by his fellow Republican crooks and crackpots.

BONUS: The great former Congressman John Dingell weighs in:

Trump and his millionaire cronies are flying around the country on private planes YOU pay for, destroying programs and policies YOU deserve.

— John Dingell (@JohnDingell) September 27, 2017

UPDATE: Uh-oh. Interior Secretary Ryan "Stinky" Zinke has a private jet problem too.