Further on Pruitt

Even as President Trump repeatedly expressed his support for Pruitt in public, top White House aides began to escalate their disapproval, suggesting the administrator has mischaracterized his role in boosting the salaries of two employees. 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 spoke at length during a Fox News interview about his role in Greenwalt and Hupp getting raises of 52 percent and 33 percent respectively under an unusual maneuver involving their reappointment through a provision of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

In the interview Wednesday, Pruitt implied he was not involved in those decisions.

[...]

“I found out this yesterday and I corrected the action, and we are in the process of finding out how it took place and correcting that going forward,” he told correspondent Ed Henry.

  WaPo

Sure, buddy.

[T]wo EPA officials and a White House official told The Post that the administrator instructed staff to award substantial pay boosts to both women, who had worked in different roles for him in Oklahoma.

[...]

And Pruitt’s decision to ignore White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s warnings to be more cautious about giving public interviews only complicated his standing with many of Trump’s key aides.

That will cost him. Trump doesn't want to see anybody on TV more than himself.

Trump has resisted calls to oust Pruitt but has complained privately about the EPA chief for days, advisers said.

[...]

Those officials’ sense of unease continued to escalate over the course of a single day, after the EPA’s lead ethics official issued a memo saying that he lacked important facts when he concluded that Pruitt’s rental lease with a lobbyist last year did not violate federal gift rules. It also emerged that Pruitt was late with some of his rent payments for a room in that Capitol Hill condo.

Fifty dollars a night, and he's late?

Vicki Hart, who served as Pruitt’s landlord and is wife of energy and transportation lobbyist Steve Hart, was at times forced to remind him that rent payments were due, these people said.

[...]

Justina Fugh, a senior ethics attorney and agency veteran, said she learned of Pruitt’s unusual housing arrangement late last week when political aides called her while she was at the movies, told her the outlines of the lease and asked her for a quick ruling. She initially gave her approval based on the specifics they shared. Only later did she learn other details from news reports.

“What they gave me was not the full picture . . . I was just too credulous,” Fugh said Thursday. “Advice that’s given by an ethics official is only as good as the information that’s provided.”

[...]

In a sign of Pruitt’s split-screen existence, according to administration officials briefed on the matter, Trump on Friday plans to sign the directive expediting air- quality permits. Yet the White House canceled an announcement event where the two were to appear together.

That's not a good omen for Pruitt.

The Washington Post confirmed that three EPA officials — Kevin Chmielewski, former deputy chief of staff for operations; John E. Reeder, former deputy chief of staff; and Special Agent Eric Weese — left or were reassigned after raising concerns about how Pruitt and his deputies operated. Chmielewski is on leave without pay, Reeder is on an “executive in residence” fellowship at American University, and Weese is no longer the head of Pruitt’s security detail.

[...]

The staff moves were first reported by the New York Times, which also named two other individuals sidelined or forced to take leave after questioning how money was being spent at the EPA. In an emailed statement Thursday, agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox called them “a group of disgruntled employees who have either been dismissed or reassigned.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 4/8:

Not only was Pruitt late with his sweetheart $50 a night room rental, the landlord was a friend of his who finally had to change the locks to get rid of him.