So Just What is Going on at the EPA, re "Media Monitoring" and tracking of Agency Staff Who Have Questioned Pruitt. Let's take a look, with @LFFriedman nytimes.com/2017/12/17/us/…
EPA senior staffer Betsy Southerland, at a private lunch with EPA friends, criticizes Pruitt, remarks that were later made public. Within days, a GOP opposition research firm submits a FOIA request for her EPA emails. documentcloud.org/documents/4331… 
Here is the FOIA that the GOP group associated with America Rising submitted for Southerland's records, and a tally of what they got in response.
Cut to the west Coast, in Seattle. Long-time EPA employee Michael Cox writes an extremely critical note to Scott Pruitt, which he shares with other EPA employees. Days later. Cox's emails are FOIAed too.
Southerland and Cox were both retiring. But anyone looking to find more "resistance" players at the EPA might want to look at who they communicated with on the way out, and what their colleagues said. Hence the FOIAs to perhaps grab a record of those who "shared concerns"
These FOIA requests of EPA employees--about 20 in total--were all done by Allan Blutstein, a lawyer who works for both America Rising and Definers Public Affairs. (The "he has never been murdered" line on his bio is a joke, his company said when I asked)
So, Blustein has filed all the FOIA requests. But that is not all. America Rising has this year been a big promoter of Scott Pruitt, helping defend the agency against criticism.
So what happens now?? The EPA moves in early December to hire Definers Public Affairs, where Blustein works, as a "media monitoring" contractor, even while Blustein still has pending FOIAs for agency staffers who have been critical of EPA. Here the award notice
So now, the EPA has a company working for it as a "media monitor" whose senior VP is simultaneously doing FOIA requests looking for dirt on EPA employees who have challenged Scott Pruitt. That is what led one employee to call this a "witch hunt"
It has been a busy week at the NYT for those of us who help write about the EPA. There was this. nytimes.com/2017/12/13/sci…
And there was this. nytimes.com/2017/12/10/us/…
