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Blast from the past: 'This is insane!' -- ethics officials vexed by Pruitt condo
If any agency ethics officials (i.e., outside OGE, whose leader I trust) read my tweets, they might find it interesting to read this cautionary tale about how political appointees can try to manipulate them. I believe Kevin will be ok now, but what a mess.
Link to tweet
EPA
'This is insane!' — ethics officials vexed by Pruitt condo
Kevin Bogardus, E&E News reporter
Greenwire: Friday, March 29, 2019
EPA ethics officials went outside the agency for help after they learned about former Administrator Scott Pruitt's lease of a lobbyist-tied condo on Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill.
Emails recently released under the Freedom of Information Act show last year's struggles of career and political EPA staff as they tried to understand the ethics implications of Pruitt's rental of an apartment linked to a lobbyist who had business before the agency. The agency would release not one but two ethics memos to explain how Pruitt's unique lease — paying relatively low market rent of $50 per night for only the nights he spent in the condo — did not constitute a gift.
E&E News reported then about the haphazard process behind the memos, with ethics officials learning key details about the condo first from the news rather than political superiors (Greenwire, April 11, 2018).
One year ago today, ABC News broke the story that Pruitt had lived in the condo. Scandals over his first-class travel and costly security measures had already been simmering at that point. The condo story, however, unleashed a torrent of new information on Pruitt's mismanagement and heavy spending that eventually forced him to resign from EPA more than three months later.
The newly disclosed records show the other people consulted during the condo rental brouhaha. Kevin Minoli, then EPA's principal deputy general counsel and designated agency ethics official, authored an initial memo that said Pruitt's condo lease was not a gift. That document soon fell under intense scrutiny, and Minoli began work on what became a second memo, which laid out the factual analysis for his original determination.
....
Twitter: @KevinBogardus Email: kbogardus@eenews.net
'This is insane!' — ethics officials vexed by Pruitt condo
Kevin Bogardus, E&E News reporter
Greenwire: Friday, March 29, 2019
EPA ethics officials went outside the agency for help after they learned about former Administrator Scott Pruitt's lease of a lobbyist-tied condo on Washington, D.C.'s Capitol Hill.
Emails recently released under the Freedom of Information Act show last year's struggles of career and political EPA staff as they tried to understand the ethics implications of Pruitt's rental of an apartment linked to a lobbyist who had business before the agency. The agency would release not one but two ethics memos to explain how Pruitt's unique lease — paying relatively low market rent of $50 per night for only the nights he spent in the condo — did not constitute a gift.
E&E News reported then about the haphazard process behind the memos, with ethics officials learning key details about the condo first from the news rather than political superiors (Greenwire, April 11, 2018).
One year ago today, ABC News broke the story that Pruitt had lived in the condo. Scandals over his first-class travel and costly security measures had already been simmering at that point. The condo story, however, unleashed a torrent of new information on Pruitt's mismanagement and heavy spending that eventually forced him to resign from EPA more than three months later.
The newly disclosed records show the other people consulted during the condo rental brouhaha. Kevin Minoli, then EPA's principal deputy general counsel and designated agency ethics official, authored an initial memo that said Pruitt's condo lease was not a gift. That document soon fell under intense scrutiny, and Minoli began work on what became a second memo, which laid out the factual analysis for his original determination.
....
Twitter: @KevinBogardus Email: kbogardus@eenews.net