Scott Pruitt wanted to go to Rose Bowl. Tickets sold-out. So what did he do? Got one of his top political aides to call a well-connected energy industry PR executive to score four seats near 50-yard line. Today's EPA. @SteveEder @HirokoTabuchi @LFFriedman nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/…
Pruitt did pay $175 a piece for these tickets. The New York Times did a little checking. If he had gone to the secondary market to buy those tickets himself--the only way for mortals to get such seats days before the game- would cost Pruitt as much seven times the price.
Another fact. Pruitt took his security detail with to California for the Rose Bowl game. Taxpayers cover the cost of travel and accommodations. And his his staff was involved in working out details for Pruitt's visit with his family to California.
The New York Times @SteveEder spent a month pushing a freedom of information request with the University of Oklahoma to get pieces of this information. As the Oklahoma football team was in the Rose Bowl game last year
But this is just one small piece of a series of interventions by Scott Pruitt staff to do favors that benefited his family. Aides the Mr. Pruitt played a role in getting his daughter an internship last summer at the White House
Pruitt's top aide setup a secret meeting in Denver with billionaire businessman Phil Anschutz, owner Oklahoma's largest newspaper/major contributor to GOO Senate candidates. Pruitt took visit during a taxpayer-funded trip to Colorado. Agency left this detail off of EPA calendar
Pruitt himself wanted to help his daughter get into UVA's elite law school. He placed a call to the former GOP speaker of the Virginia House, a UVA law school graduate, and ask him to weigh in with the UVA dean. His daughter got in.
Tracking down all these tidbits requires a great deal of labor. The WashPost is pursuing its own set of similar Pruitt acts, from Chick-fil-A franchise effort for his wife to aides getting him snacks. It's an odd time to be covering the EPA.
I would rather be writing about EPA policy--like how the EPA today moved to roll back the Clean Water protections it considered excessive from the Obama Administration. I really mean it. Thankfully our colleague @CoralMDavenport had a story on that too nyti.ms/2HOi2zd
