What Finally Did In Scott Pruitt?
By the beginning of July, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt was embroiled in so many scandals that even his critics were beginning to wonder if he was invincible.
He was not. On Thursday afternoon, President Trump announced on Twitter that he accepted Pruitt’s resignation, ending a tumultuous, troubled tenure atop the agency. The abrupt departure came after months of Trump defending Pruitt, despite many White House aides concluding that Pruitt was a distraction and needed to go, and despite increasingly vocal criticism among Republican members of Congress and even pro-Trump pundits like Laura Ingraham. The mystery is what finally pushed Trump to oust him.
But this week has seen a deluge of damaging stories, notable even by the elevated standards of Pruitt’s administration. that Pruitt had sought a $200,000 per annum job for his wife, Marlyn, at the Republican Attorneys General Association, asking an aide to make calls on her behalf—areported. that Pruitt had pleaded with Trump to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, then install Pruitt as temporary attorney general. that Pruitt had installed a former political crony as the head of the office dealing with public-information requests at EPA.
