EPA Administrator’s Aide Reveals Frequent “Business” Trips to OK were Pretexts for Pruitt’s Personal Travel on Taxpayers’ Dime

A letter signed by five members of Congress today reveals that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s former deputy chief of staff, Kevin Chmielewski, a former Trump campaign aide, testified to Congressional investigators that Pruitt was guilty of “wasteful spending of taxpayer funds” and “disregard for the ethical and legal requirements of your position.”

One of the items highlighted in the letter is an issue that the Environmental Integrity Project revealed in July, after filing Freedom of Information Act requests and then lawsuits to obtain documents about Pruitt’s frequent travel back to Oklahoma.

The EPA records obtained by EIP show that Pruitt spent about half his time in his first three months in office on trips, costing more than $12,000 in taxpayer funds, that included stops in his home state. Pruitt spent a total of 43 out of 92 days in March, April and May 2017 on travel that included trips to or from Oklahoma.

According to Pruitt deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski’s testimony, recorded in today’s letter from the Congress members to Pruitt: “He (Chmielewski) … informed our staffs that you directed your staff to find reasons for you to travel to Oklahoma, so that you could be in your home state for long weekends at taxpayers’ expense.  Mr. Chmielewski described the official meetings in Oklahoma as being pretextural, such as scheduling an official meeting with an old friend.”

EIP thanks Senators Carper and Whitehouse, and US Representatives Cummings, Connolly and Beyer, for investigating Pruitt’s mismanagement of EPA.

“We believe that Scott Pruitt should resign immediately for grossly abusing his office,” said Tom Pelton, Director of Communications for the Environmental Integrity Project. “He has been wasting taxpayer money and betraying the purpose of EPA by working to dismantle public health protections for the benefit of his political allies in polluting industries.”

The letter is available here.