"EPA's Protective Service Detail handles security decisions and this particular decision was made before Administrator Pruitt arrived at EPA," Wilcox said.
EPA's inspector general and congressional committees are now conducting about a dozen investigations into actions by Pruitt and his closest aides.ĮPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox repeated the assertion Monday that EPA security staff, not Pruitt, made the decision to increase the administrator's security. On Wednesday, Pruitt is set to testify before a Senate committee where he is likely to face another round of sharp questions about his administration of the federal environmental agency. Pruitt repeated the claim that the extraordinary spending on his personal security was needed because the threats against him have been "unprecedented in terms of quantity and type." He then read aloud a threat posted on Twitter last year by a man who said he planned to shoot Pruitt and who was later determined by investigators to be in India. In testimony before two House subcommittees last month, Pruitt sought to put the blame for any missteps on his subordinates, saying that his security team decided he should fly in first class and that his chief of staff approved the questionable raises. President Donald Trump said last week he continues to have confidence in Pruitt even as criticism of his EPA chief has increasingly been coming from fellow Republicans. Pruitt is also under fire for substantial raises afforded to two young staffers he brought with him from Oklahoma, where he previously served as a Republican state attorney general. Pruitt has faced a steady trickle of revelations involving pricey trips in first-class seats and unusual security spending, including a $43,000 soundproof booth for making private phone calls. Altogether, the agency has spent about $3 million on Pruitt's 20-member full-time security detail, which is more than three times the size of his predecessor's part-time security contingent. The Associated Press reported last month that Pruitt's preoccupation with his safety came at a steep cost to taxpayers, as his swollen security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes.
0 kommentar(er)
