Executive Departments Part 2

[AmazonGrace]

History is just not her thing 

 

[AmazonGrace]

There are good news about Scotty for once:

he moisturizes

 

[GreyhoundFan]

@AmazonGrace -- I love this comment posted with the article you linked:

 

Quote

As seen on TV:
 Hi, I'm Scott Pruitt, and when I'm traveling the globe at the public's expense, my skin can get dry, especially up there in the First Class Cabin.  That's why I always insist on Exxon Valdez, my moisturizer of choice.
 It worked so well on the coast of Alaska and will work for you too.  
And I'm not just a paid spokesperson, I'm a satisfied user;
Exxon Valdez, it keeps my skin moist and slimy.
 Preferred by oily characters like me.  
Look for it wherever Obama era protections have been removed.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Scott Pruitt’s abuses of power, ranked"

Spoiler

The Scott Pruitt ethics saga is becoming comical. Even White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders could not suppress a wry smile this week when asked during a media briefing about the Environmental Protection Agency administrator's enlistment of an aide to hunt for a secondhand mattress from the Trump International Hotel in Washington.

“I couldn't comment on the specifics of the furniture used in his apartment . . . and certainly would not attempt to,” Sanders said, drawing laughter from reporters.

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported on another use of government resources to procure a luxury hotel item for Pruitt. In this case, the object of the Oklahoman's desire was a moisturizing lotion available at the Ritz-Carlton.

Where does Pruitt's taxpayer-funded effort to prevent dry skin rank among his other abuses of power? Here's the definitive list:

1. The Chick-fil-A restaurant

Pruitt last year had his scheduler request a meeting with Chick-fil-A chief executive Dan Cathy to discuss “a potential business opportunity,” which turned out to be an opportunity for Pruitt's wife, Marlyn, to open a restaurant in the popular fast-food chain.

Scott Pruitt wound up speaking not with Cathy but instead with another company representative, and Marlyn Pruitt started but did not complete an application to become a Chick-fil-A franchisee. Though ultimately unsuccessful, the pursuit of a restaurant tops the list because it represents an attempt to use Scott Pruitt's position to establish a personal profit stream that could continue long after his time in office.

Also, Pruitt's defense — that “we need more of them in Tulsa, and we need more of them across the country,” as if trying to open a Chick-fil-A were some kind of public service — is particularly weak.

2. The $50-per-night condo

For six months last year, Pruitt enjoyed one of the sweetest housing arrangements in Washington: a condominium on Capitol Hill that he could rent for the far-below-market rate of $50 per night, paying only when he was in town. Making bad appearances worse, the condo belonged to the wife of a lobbyist whose firm represents energy companies with interests in EPA decisions.

Pruitt's deal seems antithetical to President Trump's “drain the swamp” mantra.

3. The raises

Early this year, two of Pruitt's top aides received large raises: 52 percent in one case and 33 percent in the other. The White House had rejected such hefty pay increases, but the EPA used an obscure provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act to hand them out, anyway.

“I did not know about the pay raise,” Pruitt told Fox News, but three administration officials told The Washington Post that Pruitt endorsed the raises.

4. The $43,000 soundproof phone booth

For frivolity, this one is hard to beat. The Government Accountability Office determined in April that the pricey installation of a soundproof phone booth in Pruitt's office violated federal spending laws, which require agencies to notify lawmakers if exceeding a $5,000 cap on furnishing, redecorating or otherwise making improvements to agency heads' offices.

5. The first-class travel

Early in his tenure, Pruitt made a habit of flying first class while his aides sat in coach, inflating the EPA's travel costs. Federal regulations require government travelers to “exercise the same care in incurring expenses that a prudent person would exercise if traveling on personal business . . . and therefore, should consider the least expensive class of travel that meets their needs.”

6. The lotion

Pruitt's security detail cost $3.5 million in 2017, almost twice the annual price tag to protect his recent predecessors. The EPA justified round-the-clock security by saying Pruitt “has faced an unprecedented amount of death threats against him.” Pruitt, however, has sometimes used bodyguards for nonsecurity purposes. It was members of Pruitt's security detail who carried out the search for his preferred moisturizer. Pruitt also has asked agents to pick up his dry cleaning.

7. The mattress

In the fall, Pruitt tasked his scheduler with the nongovernment mission of shopping for a discount “Trump Home Luxury Plush Euro Pillow Top” mattress. Pruitt also deployed the aide, Millan Hupp — one of the two to receive a big raise — to scout apartments in desirable Washington neighborhoods and to help arrange a family vacation to California so the Pruitts could watch the University of Oklahoma football team play in the Rose Bowl.

8. The $130 fountain pens

Pruitt's expensive taste extends to writing implements. The EPA in August spent $1,560 on a dozen customized silver fountain pens emblazoned with the agency's seal and Pruitt's signature. An order from the Tiny Jewel Box, which bills itself as Washington's “premier destination for fine jewelry and watches,” also included $1,760 worth of other high-end office supplies, such as personalized journals.

9. The dinner reservation

The New York Times reported in April that Pruitt has sometimes asked his security detail to turn on lights and sirens to clear traffic so that he can travel faster to the airport or dinner, as he did on one evening when running late for a reservation at the French restaurant Le Diplomate.

10. The mess hall

Last year, as Pruitt became a regular at the bargain-priced White House mess hall, the White House told agency chiefs of staff that Cabinet members should dine there only occasionally and not overuse their access to cheap eats, Politico reported. Pruitt, according to the report, “has been known to complain that EPA headquarters has no cafeteria of its own and no private dining quarters.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[formergothardite]

5 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

They will not give up until they can make as many people as possible in America suffer from lack healthcare. I'm at the point where I'm worried our country will never recover. Maybe we have already passed the point of no return and it is only going to get worse from here. I was so positive about things during Obama's last four years, but now, I'm afraid America will just fall into ruin and there is nothing any of us can do about. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Today's chapter of "Fun With Scotty": "Scott Pruitt Made Public Servants Fetch His Protein Bars and Greek Yogurt"

Spoiler

If you’ve worked for Scott Pruitt, there’s a not-insignificant chance that you have fetched him his favorite junk—and health!—food while on the job.

According to four sources familiar with the work environment at the Environmental Protection Agency, its scandal-plagued EPA administrator has regularly sent his subordinates out during the workday to pick up his favorite snacks and treats. Pruitt has been known to send staffers on these errands at least twice a week, with some sources describing his demands as “constant,” and others merely noting that he does this “frequently.”

“I can’t tell you how many times I was sent out to get protein bars on the orders of [Pruitt],” one person told The Daily Beast.

Beyond the protein bars, Pruitt also has a well-known sweet tooth, and often tells staffers to make a grocery run to get his preferred sweets, cookies, and Greek yogurt, among other items, sources say.

Pruitt’s tastes in snacks are rather refined, according to former aides. He is particularly fond of finger food from the upscale eatery Dean & Deluca, according to a former EPA official. Pruitt is also particular about his coffee tastes, the former official said, and would often direct an aide to brew him pour-over coffee, which he prefers to more run-of-the-mill brewing methods.

An agency spokesperson declined to comment directly on this story. “EPA will not be commenting on anonymous sources who are working to distract Americans from Administrator Pruitt’s accomplishments on regulatory certainty and environmental stewardship,” the spokesperson told The Daily Beast in an emailed statement.

Pruitt’s use of official resources to run personal errands is just the latest in a long string of controversies that have dogged his tenure as the nation’s top environmental regulator. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that Pruitt has also tasked his security detail with personal tasks such as picking up his dry cleaning and fetching him hand lotion that is apparently available only at Ritz Carlton hotels.

Also this week, emails obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Sierra Club, an environmentalist group, showed a top Pruitt aide seeking a used mattress for the administrator from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, and inquiring about the purchase of a Chick-fil-A franchise on Pruitt’s wife's behalf. That aide, Millan Hupp, resigned this week.

Such practices have drawn the ire of ethics watchdogs, who balk at top government official using his official staff to run these types of personal errands. Stories like this one, however, are nothing new for Donald Trump’s EPA administrator, who has managed to survive intense scrutiny of his spending on first class airfare, and his one-time accommodations in a Capitol Hill house owned by the wife of an energy lobbyist.

Nevertheless, Pruitt maintains the support of the president, at least publicly. But multiple current and former administration officials told The Daily Beast that morale on Pruitt’s staff is currently in the pits.

One source described the work environment as a “hell hole,” where many staffers, some of whom had been eyeing the exits for months, have now bolted, and several still remaining are quietly looking for other jobs. In addition to Hupp, Sarah Greenwalt, a senior counselor to Pruitt, resigned this week.

As Pruitt has become increasingly isolated in his position—with numerous White House senior officials, including Chief of Staff John Kelly, wishing him gone as soon as possible—multiple sources said that the EPA chief continues to share a familiar trait with his boss—a refusal to say, “I’m sorry.”

In the months since the deluge of negative news stories and revelations began, sources familiar all told The Daily Beast that Pruitt hasn’t convened a meeting of staffers to apologize for what he has put them through, or thanked them for their work defending him publicly and privately.

In private conversations with groups of staffers, Pruitt is known to talk largely about himself.

“Narcissist,” one former administration official bluntly assessed.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

If you don't learn from history you're bound to repeat it 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Look what Nazi Hobbit did now: 

 

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

If you don't learn from history you're bound to repeat it 

 

Good grief, this sounds just like what they told the people being taken to the gas chambers... 

30 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Look what Nazi Hobbit did now: 

 

Fuck him. Fuck him twice with a ten foot pole. Sideways.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Scott Pruitt is acting like what he is: The poorest member of Trump’s Cabinet"

Spoiler

Take a moment to pity Scott Pruitt.

I know this sentiment comes as a shock. After all, in a presidential administration haunted by scandals, Scott Pruitt still stands out for the surprising pettiness of his peccadilloes.

Last week alone, we discovered the Environmental Protection Agency chief had turned his administrative aides and security staff members — whose salary is paid by our taxes — into personal assistants in a way that would be familiar to a Hollywood producer. No task was too demeaning for them to take on. He demanded they pick up dry-cleaning and seek out his preferred skin moisturizer, one apparently only for sale at high-end Ritz-Carlton hotels.

True, he’s hardly alone. Compare all this with the high-living behavior of some of his colleagues in the administration. President Trump is the ringleader: He spent $13 million last year traveling. One weekend alone at his New Jersey golf club cost more than $44,000. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson (estimated net worth: $26 million) got caught ordering $31,000 worth of dining room furniture for his office suite, while Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and his wife, Louise Linton, took advantage of a military flight to Fort Knox that was suspiciously timed for the 2017 solar eclipse. Much of this happens on the public tab, no matter how many bucks they’ve got banked.

Pruitt’s no slouch in that department, either: He has insisted on flying first class when traveling on government business, citing security threats. But still — there is something frenzied about his spending and the way he pursues it. That probably shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Economist Robert H. Frank calls the pressure to indulge in ever-more high-end goods and luxury experiences an expenditure cascade. As the wealthy spend more on luxurious goods and services, the pressure increases for everyone else to do the same. That’s something that has defined our second gilded age, as almost all of us can attest to. We’ve seen this effect in our own lives in everything from coffee to baby strollers, handbags to houses.

And now we see it from Pruitt, a middle-class striver in a rich man’s administration, courtesy of his spot in Trump’s Cabinet, the wealthiest ever assembled by a U.S. president. It was sociologist Thorstein Veblen who coined the term “conspicuous consumption” during the first gilded age. In his view, we are not simply spending for the sheer joy of it. It is, instead, a form of signaling status, a visual way to demonstrate power. Pruitt is the latest — or at least the most notable — figure to embrace that tendency.

We judge ourselves by the company we keep. And although you and I find ourselves keeping up with the Joneses, Pruitt finds himself keeping up with the Trumps (estimated net worth: $2.8 billion), the McMahons (estimated net worth: $1.6 billion), the DeVoses (estimated net worth: $1.5 billion), the Rosses (estimated net worth: $700 million), the Mnuchins (estimated net worth: $400 million) and the Sessionses (estimated net worth: $7.5 million).

Pruitt, by contrast, makes a tad less than $200,000 annually serving as head of the EPA. His net worth, according to mandatory filings? An estimated $400,000. Not riches, certainly, not take-this-job-and-shove-it money but impressive enough for a 50-year-old career politician in the United States, a country where about 40 percent of adults claim they could not come up with $400 in an emergency without borrowing money or pawning belongings.

But it’s not an adequate sum, not in the Trump administration, where Pruitt’s net worth is pretty much chump change, or in the Senate, where the median net worth is an estimated $3.2 million. (Members of the House get by with a more modest but still substantial $900,000.)

Could this, perhaps, at least partly explain Pruitt’s orgy of ethically dodgy financial behavior? He’s not the first pol to fall prey to this status spending. Just a few years back, we were treated to the spectacle of former Virginia governor Robert F. McDonnell, whose own dodgy financial trials originated, in part, in his family’s attempts to keep up with the high Virginia society that they found themselves thrust into after his election.

After all, Pruitt’s high-end skin care regimen is not the only example of his eyebrow-raising purchases and staff commands. His team also made sure he was supplied with delectables from gourmet food purveyor Dean & DeLuca. They apartment-hunted for the man, and helped him plan a family vacation to California to see the Rose Bowl. One even called the Trump International Hotel, asking whether any used mattresses were available for Pruitt to purchase, and what the sale price might be if so.

This, of course, comes on top of other Pruitt reveals, including renting a Capitol Hill apartment for $50 a night from the wife of a lobbyist with business pending before the EPA, charging the EPA for a dozen fountain pens costing $130 a piece, demanding that his security detail use their emergency sirens when he’s late for dinner reservations at destinations such as Le Diplomate and dining so often at the low-cost but high-end White House mess that he was asked to show up a little less often.

Give Pruitt some credit — he was, at least, attempting to save a buck. He’s a self-important spender, part cheapskate and schnorrer. But self-sacrifice? A modest lifestyle? Please. This is the Trump administration we’re talking about.

Common sense says the richer the company we keep — and the more high living that goes on around us — the more we’ll spend trying to keep up, and show off. Passing time with people wealthier than ourselves almost certainly shifts our reference points.

Many of us seem instinctively to know this. When a group of researchers led by Sara Solnick, then at the University of Miami, conducted an experiment where they asked subjects if they would prefer to earn $50,000 a year while others made do with $25,000 or instead an annual salary of $100,00 while living surrounded by those taking home $250,000 a year, about half say would prefer the lesser amount. The authors of the survey found that when they looked deeper at the decision, they found it wasn’t driven by envy. Instead, they noted, “Many seemed to see life as an ongoing competition, in which not being ahead means falling behind.”

Watching other people spend money, it seems, encourages others to do so as well. When Pedro Gardete, an assistant professor at Stanford University, crunched the data from hundreds of thousands of airline passengers, he discovered that people are significantly more likely to buy a snack or pay to watch a premium movie if the person sitting next to them does so first.

In this light, Pruitt’s pettiness isn’t mysterious at all. He’s just trying to keep up in an administration where almost everyone else is far, far ahead of him on the economic food chain. It all makes sense, in a behavioral finance sort of way.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"House Democrat accuses Scott Pruitt of delaying public-records requests by answering Obama-era ones first"

Spoiler

Three former aides to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt confirmed to congressional investigators that the EPA delayed producing emails and other government documents sought by members of the public through public-records requests by choosing instead to respond to old petitions made during the Obama administration first.

The “first-in, first out” tactic for requests made through the Freedom of Information Act is yet another example of the EPA restricting what records make their way into the public eye since Pruitt has taken office. That public-records policy was described in a letter sent Monday to Pruitt by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, which requested documents from the administrator.

That committee’s investigation into Pruitt is just one of at least a dozen federal inquiries the EPA chief is facing over his questionable spending and management decisions at the agency.

His tenure has also drawn the scrutiny of journalists, environmentalists and other members of the public who have filed thousands of FOIA requests with the EPA since Pruitt has taken office and attempted to unravel environmental rules put in place by the previous administration.

Kevin Chmielewski, Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff, told the committee’s staff that, facing that torrent of requests, Pruitt instructed his staff “not to respond to FOIA requests regarding your tenure until requests from the Obama Administration had been completed,” according to the letter addressed to Pruitt.

Two other former Pruitt aides, Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp, confirmed the “first-in, first out” policy, according to the letter.

In response to a request for comment about the letter, the EPA noted that it has been flooded with FOIA requests since the start of Pruitt’s tenure even as it sits on a backlog of requests.

“Since the beginning of this administration, EPA has seen a dramatic increase in FOIA requests as compared to the last administration, including a nearly 200% increase in the Administrator’s office alone, and the Agency is working to release them in a timely manner,” EPA spokeswoman Kelsi Daniell said. “When Administrator Pruitt arrived at EPA he inherited a backlog of FOIA requests, some dating back to 2008, and over the last year and a half, EPA has worked tirelessly to clear this backlog.”

Daniell added that the agency will respond to details of the letter “through the proper channels.”

According to Cummings, both Justice Department guidelines and the EPA’s own FOIA regulations call for the agency to complete simpler requests ahead of more complex ones, instead of just tackling them in the order they are received.

Greenwalt, at one time Pruitt’s senior counsel, objected to the “first in, first out” policy. A better way to handle the flood of FOIA requests, she told the committee according to the letter, was to “evaluate them as they come in, recognizing that some FOIAs are larger than others and more time-consuming and more complicated than others.”

Greenwalt also told the committee that she personally reviewed some FOIA responses to identify “potential additional redactions,” according to the letter. Both Greenwalt and Hupp left their jobs at the EPA last week.

Beyond the “first in, first out” policy, Pruitt’s political appointees also sought to tighten the reins over public-records requests by reviewing them personally.

Jonathan Newton, an attorney-adviser at the agency, told FOIA coordinators in a June 2017 email to send pending releases for review to three political appointees at least “48 hours before the release.” The three Pruitt aides tasked with scrutinizing the responses were his chief of staff, Ryan Jackson; Liz Bowman, then his top communications officer; and another EPA spokeswoman at the time, Amy Graham.

A month later, Jackson issued a memo to the heads of six EPA offices to “implement a pilot project” centralizing the completion of many FOIA requests in the Office of General Counsel.

According to a 2015 report, the EPA’s inspector general, the agency’s internal watchdog for waste and abuse, “did not find any indications of political interference or delay in the release of FOIA documents” at the EPA during former president Barack Obama’s time in office.

Some FOIA requesters, such as the Sierra Club, have had to sue the EPA to get documents released. A cache of emails released to the environmental group helped fuel news stories about Pruitt.

One of those email exchanges showed, for example, that Pruitt spent $1,560 on a dozen customized fountain pens from a Washington jewelry store emblazoned with the EPA’s seal and Pruitt’s signature.

“Scott Pruitt will do everything possible to operate in the shadows because every time his veil of secrecy is pulled back, we find more reasons he should resign,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Documents obtained by the Sierra Club’s FOIA litigation have revealed even more about Pruitt’s unethical and potentially illegal behavior, so it’s no wonder he’d try and obstruct the process.”

Even without such restriction, bureaucrats often complete FOIA requests much more slowly than petitioners prefer. “FOIA is often a slow and difficult process, but under Pruitt, the EPA has taken FOIA obstruction to a whole new level,” said Austin Evers, executive director of  American Oversight, a watchdog group that has filed more than 70 FOIA requests with the EPA.

Evers added that “more often than not, we’ve been forced to go to court to release documents that should belong to the public.”

 

[AmazonGrace]

More fun with Scotty: 

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Cartmann99]

4 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

More fun with Scotty: 

 

Well, hell. I admit that I haven't been reading every single article about Scott Pruitt's shenanigans, because there's a damn avalanche of stories every week about his corrupt ways. I very foolishly assumed after seeing a picture of their big house back in Oklahoma, that Mrs. Pruitt had been very successful in her career, and that the root cause of Scotty's shenanigans was a sad little man whose ego was bruised because his wife made more money than he did. If Mrs. Pruitt has essentially been a SAHM since the late nineties, then these folks are even more corrupt than I originally thought.

The article talks about how Scott expressed to others the need for Mrs. Pruitt to obtain employment, because paying for two residences was creating a financial strain. That's understandable, as keeping up two residences would create a financial strain on most people, but I think these folks were already in a world of financial hurt before they ever came to Washington because they've been living above their means.

from the article:

Quote

From 1991 to 1995, payroll records show, Marlyn Pruitt worked as a public school nurse in Jenks, a suburb of Tulsa, earning between $18,300 and $23,911 annually. A résumé she submitted to the school district shows she was certified in neonatal advanced life support and was a registered nurse in Oklahoma and Kentucky. It also identified her as a preschool Sunday school teacher

Okay, so Mrs. Pruitt was a nurse before she became a SAHM, but it says somewhere else in the article that her license has since expired. Why isn't she trying to get her license back so that she can pursue employment in the field of nursing?  

*smacks head* Sorry, I forgot for a moment that her last name is Pruitt, and therefore she has no interest in being fairly compensated for her skill set. She and Scotty just want someone to pay her her a hefty salary for doing nothing. 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Since the Repugs in congress won't do anything, nothing will happen: "If Pruitt won’t resign and Trump won’t fire him, what penalty could he face?"

Spoiler

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has seemingly become to governmental ethics what Three Mile Island was to nuclear safety. A constant drumbeat of questions about his ethical behavior — excessive spending on security and office improvements, allegedly leveraging his personal position for his wife’s private gain, using EPA employees for personal work — has created a toxic political Superfund site within the administration of President Trump.

Neither Pruitt nor Trump, though, seems particularly concerned about it. Asked several months ago about the allegations Pruitt faces, Trump and his team said that they were looking into the issue, a bit of research that hasn’t resulted in any public acknowledgment of the questions that have been raised. The consensus is that any other president faced with a Cabinet-level official surrounded by a similar swarm of questions would have fired the official long ago, or that the official would have resigned. Tom Price, once Trump’s secretary of health and human services, resigned after only a small slice of similar alleged activity was revealed. Pruitt, though, is carrying on as though nothing had happened.

Even some of Trump’s allies are now calling for Pruitt to be booted. Fox News host Laura Ingraham, responding to The Post’s new report on Pruitt’s efforts to line up a job for his wife, called for Pruitt to go. A conservative nonprofit is running television ads making the same demand.

That Pruitt still has his job — and is still being praised by Trump — raises an obvious question: If the president doesn’t want to fire Pruitt and Pruitt won’t resign, is there any way to get Pruitt out of office?

We spoke by phone with Professor Kathleen Clark of Washington University Law in St. Louis to answer that question. Clark’s formal expertise overlaps with Pruitt’s interests: Government ethics.

There are, at the moment, at least 12 investigations into Pruitt’s actions, as tallied by the New York Times. Most are contained within the office of the EPA Inspector General. There are also investigations underway by the Government Accountability Office and the House Oversight Committee. The possible repercussions for Pruitt from those three types of investigation vary widely.

The inspector general is looking at violations of government ethics standards, among other things.

“For some of these government ethics standards or government regulations in particular,” Clark said, “the potential consequences for an actual violation would be employment-based discipline. That of course would depend on the president taking action against Pruitt.”

Pruitt being found to have violated the rules of his job, in other words, would mean that he would be reprimanded by his boss. His boss is Trump. And Trump could respond in any way he wanted: Firing Pruitt, demanding an apology, admonishing Pruitt — or he could do nothing.

We’ve seen, for example, several other members of Trump’s administration cited for violating the Hatch Act, which prohibits campaigning from a government position. None received so much as a slap on the wrist.

In the past, Clark said, officials found to have violated regulations offered their own apologies.

“Even where there was not formal discipline by the president, there was a kind of personal accountability through acknowledgment,” she said, referring to those past cases.

The Government Accountability Office is looking at Pruitt’s actions as a potential violation of the Antideficiency Act, which, among other things, bars spending more than has been appropriated. Violations of the act “in theory can be criminal,” Clark said, though she didn’t know whether any criminal charges had ever been filed against potential offenders. People had been found to have violated the act in the past, however — with punishment falling to their supervisors. Again: up to Trump.

Then there’s the House Oversight Committee, where things get interesting.

If the House generally wants to hold Pruitt to account, it has a lot more tools at its disposal than simply asking Trump to do something.

“Certainly the House and the Senate have the authority to investigate these alleged multiple violations, ethics and otherwise, at the EPA,” she said. “Of course, in the past, Congress has quite energetically investigated administration officials when it suited Congress’s political goals.”

That qualifier at the end is important. A Republican-led Congress is going to be less likely to hold a Republican president’s EPA administrator accountable than a Democrat-led one, though with midterm elections approaching and stories about Pruitt mounting, that calculus might shift.

So what can it do?

“They can call for testimony from multiple government agency officials. They can gather information and put that information out in reports, placing political pressure on the administration or a particular agency,” she said. “They can hold up confirmation of administration nominees. They can use their appropriations power to put pressure on an agency. They have multiple tools available to them — if they have the political will.”

Then there’s what Clark called the “nuclear bomb” of congressional actions: impeachment.

In 1876, Secretary of War William Belknap was impeached by the House, according to a 2015 Congressional Research Service report, the only Cabinet official to face that punishment. (You’ll remember that impeachment and removal from office are separate steps, the first decided by the House and the latter by the Senate, requiring a two-thirds vote.) Belknap resigned before the Senate could decide whether to boot him from the government, which it ultimately declined to do. Belknap’s misdeed? Misuse of the office for personal gain.

It’s also possible that Pruitt might eventually face (or might currently be facing) federal criminal investigation by the FBI. One possibility, Clark speculated, is that Pruitt’s use of EPA employees to do personal work on his behalf might constitute a theft of government services.

A former EPA official, John Beale, was convicted on similar charges in 2015, after spending years telling his colleagues that his frequent absences were a function of work he was doing for the CIA in Pakistan. They weren’t, and he was sentenced to 32 months in prison.

Pruitt is not known to be under investigation and the ways in which he is alleged to have misused EPA resources is a far cry from what Beale did. It’s possible, though, that for that or other violations Pruitt could face prosecution.

In which case it would again fall to Trump to do something about it. Trump could fire Pruitt — or he could allow him to serve despite a criminal conviction. He could also, of course, simply pardon Pruitt, since any crimes would have been federal ones. Once again, it’s largely up to Trump and Pruitt to decide if the administrator keeps his job.

“Pruitt does appear to be a serial offender,” Clark said at one point. “He actually seems to be a systematic offender.”

Unless he resigns or Trump wants to fire him, Pruitt can remain in his position despite any of the numerous investigations that surround him. Or he could make history as the first Cabinet-level official removed from his position by a Congress that had gotten its fill of news stories about his behavior.

 

[AmazonGrace]

Rat, ship, something something 

 

[AmazonGrace]

More fun with Scotty:

 

[milkteeth]

 

This is such a good response from a Christian writer at Washington Post about Jeff Sessions quoting Romans 13 to justify ripping children away from their parents. Of course, the chuds on twitter and in the comments are attacking this writer's looks instead of what she is saying. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Yeah, I have a suggestion for a "corrective action": "Ethics office weighs ‘corrective action’ for Pruitt"

Spoiler

The federal government's top ethics official suggested Friday he is considering a "formal corrective action proceeding" regarding alleged improper behavior by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, a perhaps unprecedented step against a sitting member of the president's Cabinet.

The head of the independent Office of Government Ethics urged EPA's in-house watchdog to expand its ongoing investigations to review the latest allegations about Pruitt, including that he used EPA resources to find a job for his wife. OGE will look into the findings of that probe to decide how to proceed, acting OGE Director David Apol wrote in a letter to EPA Inspector General Arthur Elkins on Friday.

"We ask you to complete your report, as soon as possible, so that we can decide whether to begin a formal corrective action proceeding in order to make a formal recommendation to the President," Apol wrote.

President Donald Trump said earlier Friday that he was "not happy about certain things" with his embattled administrator, although he praised the "fantastic job" Pruitt is doing at EPA. Trump did not elaborate on what made him unhappy.

If Apol eventually launches such a proceeding and OGE investigators determine Pruitt probably violated ethics rules, OGE would send the matter to the president for his decision, with nonbinding recommendations for disciplinary action.

An OGE spokesperson told POLITICO the office is unaware of the agency ever before initiating a formal corrective action proceeding against any federal official, let alone a Cabinet member.

Walter Shaub, the former OGE chief who resigned last year after blasting the Trump administration for alleged ethical violations, said a formal proceeding may have been launched once or twice several decades ago but that informal procedures have allowed OGE to address its concerns since then. Shaub praised Apol’s letter.

"This latest move by OGE is a very good thing and, given the turning tide against Pruitt, may help produce a result," Shaub told POLITICO in an email. "Way to go, OGE!"

Shaub also wrote on Twitter: “That’s my old agency coming down on you, @EPAScottPruitt. (Way to go OGE!) It’s time for you to go. You‘re literally going to be THE case study in training for future cabinet officials. In case you don’t know, your name is already a verb in govt ethics circles in and out of govt.”

Before launching its own probe, OGE must first outline its concerns to ethics officials within an agency. Apol did that in April, when he asked EPA's top ethics official, Kevin Minoli, to scrutinize Pruitt’s decision to rent a Capitol Hill condo from the wife of a lobbyist representing clients before EPA. (Minoli subsequently referred the issues to Elkins' office, which traditionally handles ethics matters that require investigative authority.)

Apol's Friday letter specifically cites reports about Pruitt using EPA aides and resources to seek employment for his wife from Chick-fil-A executives and elsewhere, as well as emails and former aides' testimony that he used EPA staff to run personal errands.

The OIG is already reviewing earlier related allegations, Apol noted. "OGE now requests that you also investigate and analyze the newly alleged conduct."

"The American public needs to have confidence that ethics violations, as well as the appearance of ethics violations, are investigated and properly addressed," Apol wrote. "The efficacy of, and public trust in, our Government demands it."

If the inspector general's investigation does not satisfy Apol, the ethics office is empowered to conduct its own investigation into possible non-criminal ethics violations. Alleged criminal ethics violations must be investigated by the FBI or other law enforcement agencies.

Several House Democrats have referred Pruitt to the FBI and Justice Department for potential criminal charges. Pruitt’s actions “may have crossed a line into criminal conduct punishable by fines or even by time in prison,” they wrote. It is unclear whether the FBI will investigate Pruitt; the bureau rarely comments on whether an investigation even exists.