Pruitt “engaged in improper and excessive spending of agency funds on travel and security used his official position for his personal benefit and the personal benefit of certain E.P.A. The office described investigations the EPA conducted after four whistleblowers raised alarm. These findings were included in a letter from the United States Office of Special Counsel to President Biden. A second officer who had been in the vehicle “described that this action sent a clear message … that if you didn’t perform the bidding of the Administrator, you would lose your job.”Įventually, a supervisor even told members of Pruitt’s security detail “to disable/unplug the lights and sirens so they wouldn’t use them because the administrator will still instruct they be used, but the agent can say they don’t work.” Afterward, Pruitt “was visibly upset and was silent for an uncomfortable time in the car.” The report notes that that officer was removed from their position a few days later. The report also notes that when Pruitt again was running late and mentioned using lights, a member of his security detail explained that doing so would violate policy. Recordings Show Oil Executives Love Having So Much Access to Trump and OfficialsĪngel Olsen's 'Big Time' Is the Album She's Been Waiting All Her Life to Make Members of his protection detail found these requests “difficult to not follow.” One former deputy chief of staff to Pruitt said that adhering to them meant making trips “overly obnoxious, excessive, and more dangerous to everyone.” “Can you guys use that magic button to get us through traffic?” Pruitt would say, according to the report. One such instance was a 2017 trip driving through oncoming traffic on the streets of Washington, D.C., with lights flashing and sirens blaring, just to pick up Pruitt’s dry cleaning. Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Donald Trump, regularly ordered his drivers to speed because he couldn’t stop being late to meetings, The New York Times. Scott Pruitt, the former head of the Environmental Protection Agency under Donald Trump, regularly ordered his drivers to speed because he couldn’t stop being late to meetings, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing an EPA investigation. “The administrator was visibly upset and was silent for an uncomfortable time in the car,” the report said, noting that after the officer was moved, the message to the staff was clear.Scott Pruitt - Credit: Carolyn Kaster/AP Images These demands included racing through a four-block trip to the White House from the agency’s headquarters, as well as a trip to Colorado, with one former deputy chief of staff to Pruitt describing the driving with sirens and lights as “overly obnoxious, excessive, and more dangerous to everyone.”Ĭoncern about these demands became so intense that one member of the security detail refused to turn on the lights and sirens, and then was removed from his job, the investigators found. “Just because the administrator makes himself late for an appointment does not constitute us to arbitrarily turn on lights and sirens to get him to his next appointment timely,” one agent told investigators.
Many of the agents told the investigators that they had felt pressured by Pruitt to use the lights and sirens, describing him “as perpetually late and successful in convincing younger agents” to violate agency policy that they be used only in emergencies.
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