On Tuesday, the Atlantic reported that Scott Pruitt went behind the president’s back to give two of his favorite aides huge pay increases. On Wednesday, Pruitt went on Fox News to say that he had just heard about this and had immediately rescinded the raises. Today, the Wasington Post confirmed that Pruitt was lying:
On Thursday evening, two EPA officials confirmed that Pruitt endorsed the idea last month of giving substantial raises to senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt and scheduling and advance director Millan Hupp — although he did not carry out the pay raise himself….[Pruitt] instructed staff to award substantial pay boosts to both women, who had worked in different roles for him in Oklahoma.
The Wall Street Journal ran a laughable editorial today insisting that all of Pruitt’s offenses were the merest peccadilloes, total nothingburgers cast into the spotlight by a conspiracy among the press, the “administrative state,” and environmentalists who hate Pruitt. For some reason, though, they failed to mention either Pruitt’s end run around the White House or his firing of officials who questioned his spending habits. When they get around to it, I’m sure they’ll decide those are just nothingburgers too.
