The mobster mentality of the Trump administration

A former Secret Service agent, with a background investigating the Gambino crime family, is serving as the chief of security for Scott Pruitt, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and has helped build an unusual and costly protective apparatus around him.

The agent, Pasquale Perrotta, has clashed — at least once physically — with top E.P.A. officials who challenged Mr. Pruitt’s spending, and has steered at least one E.P.A. security contract to a business associate, according to interviews with current and former senior agency officials.

  NYT

Sometimes I wonder if the reason Trump has appointed some of these people like Pruitt is because he was told to by the Russian mobsters he's involved with and likely in hock to.

The measures he advocated in the name of security provided Mr. Pruitt with perks more commonly associated with heads of state, and often came over the objections of top agency officials. Some of them complained that Mr. Perrotta was playing fast and loose with the rules, but that he could not be challenged because he was thought to have Mr. Pruitt’s blessing.

[...]

Officially, Mr. Perrotta leads Mr. Pruitt’s protective detail, but he plays a far larger role at the E.P.A., offering security justifications for management, personnel and spending decisions, said the officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly and feared retribution.

Maybe physical, eh?

Mr. Perrotta also used agency funds to hire Italy-based private security guards to protect Mr. Pruitt during a trip to Italy, they said.

He needed a security detail in Italy?

According to an E.P.A. official who was involved in the trip, Mr. Perrotta and the security guards attended a five-course meal at a Rome restaurant with Mr. Pruitt and his staff, a rarity for security personnel, who usually do not dine with those they protect.

[...]

While in Italy, Mr. Pruitt “refused to stay at hotels recommended by the U.S. Embassy, although the recommended hotel had law enforcement and other U.S. resources on site,” according to [a letter to Mr. Pruitt by a group of Democratic lawmakers], in which the lawmakers ask Mr. Pruitt to turn over documents related to the claims. Instead, Mr. Pruitt chose to stay “at more expensive hotels with fewer standard security resources,” [...] “at taxpayer expense.”

[...]

In addition, Mr. Perrotta played a central role in approving Mr. Pruitt’s regular use of first-class flights, and has often joined him in first class, including during the trip to Italy last June, for which travel costs totaled at least $120,000, according to public records. And when Mr. Pruitt wanted a secure place to make sensitive phone calls, Mr. Perrotta pushed for the construction of a $43,000 surveillance-proof booth in Mr. Pruitt’s office in Washington, over the objections of colleagues who had advocated a less expensive option. Mr. Perrotta also pressed, unsuccessfully, for a bulletproof vehicle for Mr. Pruitt and a bulletproof desk for his security detail.

I've never even heard of a bulletproof desk.

Now that I'm thinking about the possibility of the mob telling Trump who to hire, it might make sense that Pruitt really does need all this security - if he's in or sideways with the Russian mob. Perotta, according to this article, joined the Secret Service in 1995 and "moved to the E.P.A. in 2004." So, in 13-14 years, he's seen a number of directors. Why does this one need so much protection?

An E.P.A. spokesman defended the heightened security measures, repeating previous E.P.A. assertions that Mr. Pruitt “has faced an unprecedented amount of death threats” and that “members of the president’s cabinet should be kept safe from these violent threats.”

Bullshit.

Officials from the E.P.A.’s homeland security office, under Mr. Caraballo, questioned the need for all of the additional security expenses. “EPA Intelligence has not identified any specific credible direct threat to the E.P.A. administrator,” a memo from Mr. Caraballo’s office said in February.

[...]

After excerpts from the memo were made public by two Democrats in the Senate this week, Mr. Pruitt’s staff confirmed that Mr. Caraballo had been removed from his job.

Damn! Pruitt is Trump's twin.

Since taking over the protective detail weeks after Mr. Pruitt’s confirmation in February 2017, Mr. Perrotta has cheekily referred to himself as the agency’s sheriff and has whistled the distinctive tune made famous by the Western film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” said two E.P.A. officials who worked with Mr. Perrotta. On occasion, he has worn a black cowboy hat and boots around the E.P.A. office, a move that some colleagues considered a lighthearted allusion to Mr. Pruitt’s home state, Oklahoma.

Jesus, these people.

In a self-published 2016 book detailing his work in law enforcement, Mr. Perrotta acknowledged skirmishes during his career, particularly in its early days.

“It often appeared to me that my fellow agents and supervisors did not quite get me, my motivations and authenticity often maligned and misunderstood,” he wrote. “I have come to accept that I contributed to this misconception and false labeling in part because of my high level of energy.”

[...]

Mr. Perrotta became Mr. Pruitt’s security chief after the administrator removed Eric Weese, a special agent who had a reputation, even before Mr. Pruitt’s arrival, for closely following agency rules.

Then, definitely, he had to go.

Mr. Weese had denied Mr. Pruitt’s requests to use lights and sirens when being driven in his agency-issued vehicle to restaurants and airports, and also made it clear he would be opposed to signing off on security waivers to allow Mr. Pruitt to fly in first class.

[...]

Mr. Perrotta not only indulged those requests, but also quickly moved to restrict access to Mr. Pruitt, making his office and the rest of that floor of the E.P.A. headquarters off-limits to anyone who was not on a list drawn up by Mr. Perrotta.

Nailed down tight.

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