Pruitt intended to use to make secret calls, broke federal law because the spending had not been properly budgeted.īut the formal investigation by the E.P.A.’s criminal division into the improper use of lights and sirens on federal government cars - an inquiry that included interviews with at least five E.P.A. The Government Accountability Office had separately concluded in 2018 that the construction of the soundproof booth, which Mr. The report recommended that the agency try to recover the money, although the E.P.A. Pruitt had spent nearly $124,000 on “excessive” travel arrangements, including first-class flights and visits to his home in Oklahoma.
The E.P.A.’s inspector general issued a report in 2019 confirming that Mr. Biden that investigations had “substantiated many of the whistle-blowers’ allegations of wrongdoing by former administrator Pruitt and by E.P.A.” Kerner, the special counsel, notified Mr. staffers and endangered public safety,” the letter said, citing the complaints filed by the whistle-blowers, who were onetime agency employees. Pruitt “engaged in improper and excessive spending of agency funds on travel and security used his official position for his personal benefit and the personal benefit of certain E.P.A. into allegations raised by four federal government whistle-blowers. The report, by the E.P.A.’s criminal enforcement division, was released on Thursday as part of a letter the United States Office of Special Counsel sent to President Biden summarizing findings from several years of investigations by the E.P.A. Pruitt, who is now running as a Republican for the United States Senate in Oklahoma and previously served as the state’s attorney general, did not respond to a request for comment. report that substantiated the allegations about the abusive use of lights and sirens on his government-issued car had never been made public, even though it was completed a month before Mr. They ultimately led to his resignation in July 2018.īut until now, an internal E.P.A. Pruitt, including first-class travel back to his home in Oklahoma on government-paid flights and improper use of government funds to build a $43,000 soundproof phone booth inside his office. Reports about this improper use of lights and sirens first became public in 2018, along with other assertions of wrongdoing by Mr. He would say “speed it up” or “we need to get there quicker,” orders that the security agents said they found “hard to disobey,” even though the lights and sirens were supposed to be used only in emergencies, it said.
Pruitt would ask members of his security detail, the report said. “Can you guys use that magic button to get us through traffic?” Mr. Pruitt with the lights and sirens going, in the wrong direction into oncoming traffic, to pick up Mr. Among the incidents cited in the report was a 2017 trip in which a special agent drove Mr. The security officers said they knew this was a violation of federal policies and “endangered public safety,” the report said. WASHINGTON - Scott Pruitt, while in charge of the Environmental Protection Agency during the Trump administration, repeatedly pressured his federal security officers to drive at excessive and sometimes dangerous speeds on routine trips, with sirens and emergency lights on, because he had a habit of running late, according to a federal report released on Thursday.
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