Scott Pruitt Before the E.P.A.: Fancy Homes, a Shell Company and Friends With Money

[Botany]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/politics/scott-pruitt-oklahoma-epa.html

A review of real estate and other public records shows that Mr. Pruitt was not the sole owner: The property was held by a shell company registered to a business partner and law school friend, Kenneth Wagner. Mr. Wagner now holds a top political job at the Environmental Protection Agency, where Mr. Pruitt, 49, is the administrator.

The mortgage on the Oklahoma City home, the records show, was issued by a local bank that was led by another business associate of Mr. Pruitt’s, Albert Kelly. Recently barred from working in the finance industry because of a banking violation, Mr. Kelly is now one of Mr. Pruitt’s top aides at the E.P.A. and runs the agency’s Superfund program.

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And he channeled state contracts to Mr. Wagner’s law firm, which was already doing business with the state.

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Last summer, about six months into his job as E.P.A. administrator, Mr. Pruitt traveled by chartered jet to a Superfund cleanup site in Colorado, where the Gold King Mine had released toxic wastewater.

At the event were two of his most loyal Oklahoma business associates — Mr. Kelly and Mr. Wagner, newly installed as E.P.A. officials themselves, though neither of them had a background in environmental policy or regulation.