Are they ALL crooks? (Rhetorical)

The Environmental Protection Agency’s inspector general is investigating whether chief of staff Ryan Jackson was involved in destroying internal documents that should have been retained, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The IG's office is asking witnesses whether Jackson has routinely destroyed politically sensitive documents, including schedules and letters from people like lobbyist Richard Smotkin, who helped arrange a trip for then-EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to Morocco when he was in office, according to one of the sources, a former administration official who told investigators he has seen Jackson do that firsthand.

[...]

EPA's internal watchdog accused Jackson earlier this week of refusing to cooperate with other ongoing investigations.

Jackson was put on notice that the document destruction was improper.

  Politico

He needed to be told that.

“They would scold us on a daily basis and Ryan would say, ‘Oh, I didn’t know, we’ll do better next time,’" the former official said.

Jackson told POLITICO he was “unaware” of the IG investigating him for destroying documents. He didn't respond to a further request for comment.

He knows now.

The interest in whether Jackson destroyed records may indicate renewed interest in allegations that Pruitt kept a "secret calendar" to hide controversial meetings with Republican donors or industry officials. In July 2018, CNN reported that Pruitt aides would regularly "scrub" his calendar, but a subsequent investigation by the National Archives and Records Administration ended in January and found no evidence of wrongdoing.

However, since NARA concluded its investigation, EPA's inspector general has been investigating the allegations.

[...]

Jackson is also facing allegations of stonewalling the internal watchdog.

So I'm guessing he really did know he was being investigated.

Trump's going to have to do away with Inspector General positions.

This week, acting Inspector General Charles Sheehan accused Jackson of defying investigators by refusing to fully cooperate with two probes.

Shit. He's going to have to do away with acting Inspector General positions, too.

"If you destroy documents with the intent of deceiving the public, it can be a violation of the Federal Records Act," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission. "If you decide these documents may be embarrassing and you don't want the public to see them and therefore you destroy them, you could be violating the Federal Records Act."

[...]

Officials who are found guilty of “willfully and unlawfully” violating the Federal Records Act and unlawfully destroying federal documents can be fined and face a jail sentence of up to three years. The IG can’t prosecute any criminal violations of the law but can refer matters to the Justice Department.

Then Jackson is safe.

He's also been in a spot of trouble before: handing out unapproved raises.  Or at least taking the blame for it to cover Pruitt's ass.

Volunteering to be the fall guy

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt’s chief of staff said on Wednesday that he is responsible for giving two top aides big raises after the White House rejected the request.

Ryan Jackson said the move to use a special authority was all his, and Pruitt had nothing to do with it.

“Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired. These kind of personnel actions are handled by EPA's HR officials, [Presidential Personnel Office] and me,” Jackson said in a statement.

  The Hill

Sort of the Michael Cohen to Scott Pruitt. John Dowd also played the role for Trump until he'd had more than he could take and quit.

As The Atlantic previously reported, Pruitt asked the White House last month to approve raises for Greenwalt and Hupp, since they are political appointees, and the White House refused. So the EPA used a special authority under the Safe Drinking Water Act to give the raises.

Pruitt told Fox News last week that he was not involved in the process and he’d just found out about it when The Atlantic reported about the raises, and he reversed them.

“My staff did and I found out about that yesterday, and I changed it,” he said. “The officials that were involved in that process should not have done what they did.”

An email that suggests Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt personally signed off on a controversial pay raise for a favored aide last month is roiling the agency.

In the last few days, top staffers became aware of an email exchange between one of two aides who received such a raise and the agency’s human resources division. In mid-March, Sarah Greenwalt, senior counsel to the administrator, wrote to HR in an attempt to confirm that her pay raise of $56,765 was being processed. Greenwalt “definitively stated that Pruitt approves and was supportive of her getting a raise,” according to an administration official who has seen the email chain.

A second administration official confirmed the exchange. The email “essentially says, ‘The administrator said that I should get this raise,’” the official told me.

  The Atlantic

Now is Pruitt going to have to fire her?

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