Environment chief Pruitt under more pressure after condo reports: lawmakers
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt may not survive long in his job after reports that he paid below market rate to live in a condo owned by a lobbyist who deals with issues overseen by his agency, lawmakers and a former Trump official said in television interviews on Sunday.
On Friday, ABC News and Bloomberg News reported that during Pruitt's first six months in Washington last year, he made a deal to pay about $50 a night - less than a third the price of similar properties - to rent a room in a Capitol Hill neighborhood condo building co-owned by energy industry lobbyist Steven Hart and his wife.
"I don’t know how you survive this one, and if he has to go, it’s because he never should have been there in the first place, said Chris Christie, the Republican former governor of New Jersey, on Sunday on ABC News' This Week program.
Christie was for a short time the head of President Donald Trump's transition team and has previously raised concerns that many political appointments had not been vetted for such conflicts of interest.
ABC later reported that Pruitt’s daughter also used the apartment in 2017 during her tenure as a White House summer intern, which Hart's wife said was not agreed in their lease.
Pruitt declined comment on the reports. The White House referred reporters to the EPA, which said the arrangement had been cleared by the agency's ethics officials.
Pruitt has already faced public criticism for his frequent use of first-class flights, which is under investigation by the EPA Inspector General, and installing a $43,000 secure phone booth to conduct confidential calls.
He "may be on his way out" after the latest reports, said Democratic Senator Doug Jones of Alabama later on the same ABC News show.
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