E.P.A. Chief Scott Pruitt (a.k.a. The Swamp Thing)

#26
#26
BowlBrother85 said:
1) Security detail for a trip to Tulsa, OK? Whatever, buddy. We will have to agree to disagree here. I think it's dumb.

2) Yes, it's very wasteful and easily avoidable.

3) And I will gladly voice my disapproval to Pruitt's conflict of interest in granting EPA approval for an oil pipeline project to a condo owner's client who was simultaneously giving him a discount on his D.C. residence. This is called corruption!

4) Not as big a deal as the others... so okay, I guess.

5) The point is they shouldn't have been given this money at all. It was an exploitation of a loophole and a clear misappropriation. This was a provision in the Safe Water Drinking Act for new employees... it was used to give existing employees raises.
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1. If there are threats, the security detail will go with the Cabinet Member in public.

2. I'm sorry, I was under the impression that you were singling out a specific individual for their specific wasteful spending such that their behavior was an aberration. So, now you're just condemning the whole government? Or, are you still focused on Pruitt?

3. Conflicts of interest are not corruption. Conflicts of interest tend to lead to corruption. Do you have evidence of corruption in this specific issue?

4. Good.

5. When was this money spent?
 
#28
#28
I could see a Republican EPA Chief needing more security than a Democrat one. The odds an environmental nut goes after you is much higher.
 
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#29
#29
DancingOutlaw said:
I could see a Republican EPA Chief needing more security than a Democrat one. The odds an environmental nut goes after you is much higher.
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Imo, the position isn't critical enough to justify the level of security. Has an EPA chief ever been attacked? They just implement policy for the administration. Anyone can do that.
 
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#30
#30
Vol_Doc said:
Imo, the position isn't critical enough to justify the level of security. Has an EPA chief ever been attacked? They just implement policy for the administration. Anyone can do that.
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They do more than that. They implement their own policy most of the time and it's usually bad.
 
#34
#34
therealUT said:
Nobody here knows about STU and SIPR.
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I find it hard to believe that if a STU or SIPR drop was even necessary at EPA that there wasn’t a secure room with comms already on the premises. I would also like to know how often he needed to actually use it and how that played into the cost/benefit decision of building it in his office. What did the previous guy do when/if it was needed?

This is all assuming, of course, the booth was for STU or SIPR because we don’t know that is even the case.
 
#35
#35
rjd970 said:
I find it hard to believe that if a STU or SIPR drop was even necessary at EPA that there wasn’t a secure room with comms already on the premises. I would also like to know how often he needed to actually use it and how that played into the cost/benefit decision of building it in his office. What did the previous guy do when/if it was needed?

This is all assuming, of course, the booth was for STU or SIPR because we don’t know that is even the case.
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I’d be shocked if all Secretaries or people on their staff didn’t have SIPRNet access. He obviously likes to travel well. But without more specifics I don’t see enough to rail over this one.

Btw I think we’re dating ourselves. I think the current equipment is called STE. But we’re talking about the same function.
 
#36
#36
NorthDallas40 said:
I’d be shocked if all Secretaries or people on their staff didn’t have SIPRNet access. He obviously likes to travel well. But without more specifics I don’t see enough to rail over this one.
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At least he isn't commandeering an Air Force jet for his entire family. But I guess the speaker carries weight.
 
#37
#37
NorthDallas40 said:
I’d be shocked if all Secretaries or people on their staff didn’t have SIPRNet access. He obviously likes to travel well. But without more specifics I don’t see enough to rail over this one.

Btw I think we’re dating ourselves. I think the current equipment is called STE. But we’re talking about the same function.
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Not sure if the widespread use would be needed for an organization like the EPA. Maybe there are certain things, I don’t know enough about that agency. Maybe some stuff on nuclear plant operations.

STE/STU...it’s all the same. I worked in a vault for several years. Glad I don’t anymore. Royal pain the ***.
 
#38
#38
rjd970 said:
Not sure if the widespread use would be needed for an organization like the EPA. Maybe there are certain things, I don’t know enough about that agency. Maybe some stuff on nuclear plant operations.

STE/STU...it’s all the same. I worked in a vault for several years. Glad I don’t anymore. Royal pain the ***.
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A freaking men. I looked up the current equipment to see what’s being used. Hit the wiki on the equipment after looking and STU-III was retired before 2010 I think? I was just curious. But yeah same basic function.
 
#39
#39
Hey. Wait a damn minute! I thought John Bolton was the Swamp Thing?! That was the thread title.
 
#42
#42
BowlBrother85 said:
Just checked (I hate copying anyone)... and for the record, John Bolton was the "Swamp Creature" in his thread. Swamp Thing is a different beast altogether. :thumbsup:
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Lol. Ok sure. Dammit guys at least throw a full cheek at it making it a full fledged half assed attempt in naming. Jees...😂
 
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#43
#43
You forgot a few scandals. Why again is this scumbag still employed? Picked out a few more. Just egregious unprecedented corruption.

At Least 23 Ethical Issues Are Dogging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt | HuffPost

2. A shady real estate deal in Oklahoma.


In 2011, Pruitt and his wife, Margaret, bought a property in Tulsa, Oklahoma, days before a court ruled that it had been fraudulently transferred by a Las Vegas developer who was on the hook for a $3.6 million loan default, according to a report the watchdog group Center for Media and Democracy published Thursday in Salon. Pruitt, then Oklahoma attorney general, flipped the property four months later, selling it to a shell company set up by a major campaign donor, Tulsa business magnate and Oklahoma Republican Party finance chair Kevin Hern.
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8. Round-the-clock security.


Pruitt isn’t just afraid of airplane hecklers. He’s particularly paranoid about threats from protesters. The EPA chief’s expansive security detail comes at a cost of close to $3 million, including pay and travel expenses, an unnamed EPA official told The Associated Press. Pruitt has roughly 20 full-time, round-the-clock security guards ― three times as many as his predecessor. Some of the guards even fly with Pruitt in first class, the EPA confirmed last month. No Cabinet member in U.S. history has ever been assassinated.
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6. About that Morocco trip...


The EPA inspector general recently expanded its inquiry into Pruitt’s travel costs to include expenses related to the December trip to Morocco to promote liquefied natural gas. The trip also attracted new scrutiny in light of Pruitt’s Washington housing arrangement. The EPA denied that Pruitt met with officials from Cheniere Energy Inc., a gas firm that paid Williams & Jensen $80,000 for lobbying, or the lobbying firm itself. But Democrats called the trip outrageous, and one insisted, “This is not an area within his portfolio. He’s not supposed to be globetrotting to promote the sale of LNG.”
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12. Punishing EPA staffers who challenged his spending.


Pruitt reassigned, demoted or forced out five agency officials who challenged his “unusually large spending on office furniture and first-class travel,” The New York Times reported on Thursday afternoon.
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#44
#44
Pruitt also lied in his interview with Ed Henry of Fox News when he claimed that he was unaware of the raises to his two Oklahoma aides at the EPA. He not only personally signed off on those raises but did so after ignoring senior level advice within the EPA not to do it.
 
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#45
#45
TennTom said:
You forgot a few scandals. Why again is this scumbag still employed? Picked out a few more. Just egregious unprecedented corruption.

At Least 23 Ethical Issues Are Dogging EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt | HuffPost
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The "shady" purchase is the only thing on this list that looks abberantly unethical.

There seem to be four questions, here, and it seems they are being conflated:

1. According to ordinary standards and the ordinary behavior of most people, is Pruitt's behavior ethical?

2. According to ordinary standards and the ordinary behavior of most people, is Pruitt's behavior abberant?

3. According to ordinary standards and the ordinary behavior of high ranking government officials, is Pruitt's behavior ethical?

4. According to ordinary standards and the ordinary behavior of high ranking government officials, is Pruitt's behavior ethical?

Even if the answers to 1-3 are "yes", I'm not sure that, unless the answer to 4 is "yes", I see the grounds for the specific anger and outcry directed at Pruitt.

I don't care for Pruitt. I think he's unfit for the position of head of the EPA. But, do I see some crazy scandal here that is far removed from the modus operandi of high ranking officials? No.

I firmly believe that if you despise any high ranking official and if you put the effort into looking closely, you will find this stuff across the board and across history. That doesn't make it right, but it should check the feelings of outrage directed at the specific person (and, most likely, redirect that outrage to the entire system).
 
#46
#46
Also, from the HuffPo piece:

He’s particularly paranoid about threats from protesters. The EPA chief’s expansive security detail comes at a cost of close to $3 million, including pay and travel expenses, an unnamed EPA official told The Associated Press. Pruitt has roughly 20 full-time, round-the-clock security guards ― three times as many as his predecessor. Some of the guards even fly with Pruitt in first class, the EPA confirmed last month. No Cabinet member in U.S. history has ever been assassinated.
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True, but misleading. The security might be over the top if it were the case that no threats of assassination have ever been made or no assassination attempts have ever been directed at a Cabinet Member.

None of us are privy to the threats Pruitt has received. None of us are privy to what the FBI and other agencies have determined regarding the credibility of the threats.

If it is the case that Pruitt is on the receiving end of credible threats, then he's going to have the security detail.
 
#47
#47
therealUT said:
Also, from the HuffPo piece:



True, but misleading. The security might be over the top if it were the case that no threats of assassination have ever been made or no assassination attempts have ever been directed at a Cabinet Member.

None of us are privy to the threats Pruitt has received. None of us are privy to what the FBI and other agencies have determined regarding the credibility of the threats.

If it is the case that Pruitt is on the receiving end of credible threats, then he's going to have the security detail.
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You say you don't like Scott Pruitt but you are very eager to give Pruitt the benefit of the doubt here. It's also possible that he is just paranoid. Also, the premise for much of your defense of him in this thread is that his conduct is customary protocol among government officials and yet you have not specifically cited any other cabinet members of any administration who have been involved in as many of these wasteful spending abuses/conflicts of interest/misappropriation of funds as Pruitt. It's not easy to get yourself called out by a Fox News reporter in an interview when you are a member of a Republican administration. Just like yourself, they normally do go the extra mile to give the benefit of the doubt to Republicans - especially so in Trump's cabinet.
 
#48
#48
BowlBrother85 said:
You say you don't like Scott Pruitt but you are very eager to give Pruitt the benefit of the doubt here. It's also possible that he is just paranoid. Also, the premise for much of your defense of him in this thread is that his conduct is customary protocol among government officials and yet you have not specifically cited any other cabinet members of any administration who have been involved in as many of these wasteful spending abuses/conflicts of interest/misappropriation of funds as Pruitt. It's not easy to get yourself called out by a Fox News reporter in an interview when you are a member of a Republican administration. Just like yourself, they normally do go the extra mile to give the benefit of the doubt to Republicans - especially so in Trump's cabinet.
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I'm not a republican. I didn't vote for Trump. I don't like Pruitt.

But, I also don't jump on sensationalist bandwagons. I give the benefit of the doubt across the board.

The system attracts and provides incentives to power seeking individuals to act unethical. The exceptions are rare.
 
#49
#49
6bjzpWeP
 
#50
#50
Some of you act surprised about this guy. Corrupt? Liar? Scumbag? Sounds like your run of the mill politician. Washington DC has always been a sewer. And it always will be.
 
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