White House has some serious legal questions to answer about Pruitt’s scandals

The following article by Natasha Geiling was posted on the ThinkProgress website April 6, 2018:

What did the White House know? How involved was energy lobbyist Steven Hart? And did Pruitt break the law at any point?

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is facing a mounting ethics crisis, from revelations that he rented a luxury Capitol Hill condofrom a lobbyist couple for $50 a night to allegations that he reassigned senior staffwho questioned his spending habits at the agency.

This week, as a fuller picture of the lobbyist-linked condo deal has emerged, both Democrat and Republican politicians have called for Pruitt to resign as administrator. But even as new details continue to emerge about Pruitt’s conduct, several key questions remain unanswered.

How involved was Steven Hart with Pruitt’s condo deal?

When ABC News initially broke the story of Pruitt’s $50 a night rental deal, the condo was linked to its co-owner, Vicki Hart. Vicki Hart is a healthcare lobbyist, while her husband, J. Steven Hart, is the chairman of Williams & Jensen — a lobbying firm that represents, among other clients, energy companies like Enbridge and Exxon.

Steven initially claimed to have no ownership claims to the condo, telling ABC News that his wife was co-owner with an unnamed second party. But a copy of the lease agreement, obtained by the Associated Press, revealed that Steven’s name — not Vicki’s — was originally listed as Pruitt’s landlord.

Steven’s name was reportedly crossed out, with Vicki’s name handwritten in its place. But the copy of the lease raises questions about how involved Steven was with the arrangement — something that he had previously tried to distance himself from.

If Steven were the initial landlord, that suggests that Pruitt might have forged the initial rental deal through him — which could spell trouble for Pruitt, given that executive branch employees are required to consider whether accepting a gift from a personal friend creates the appearance of impartiality.

It’s much more difficult for Pruitt to argue that there are no questions of impartiality if the original deal was forged with an energy industry lobbyist with business before the EPA, instead of a health industry lobbyist with no business before the agency.

Was Pruitt involved in any EPA work related to clients represented by Hart’s lobbying firm?

Both Pruitt and Hart firmly deny that the rental agreement had any impact on work at the EPA, with Pruitt going so far as to claim that Hart had no clients with business before the EPA.

But that claim isn’t true. Williams & Jensen, as a firm, represented energy companies like Enbridge and Exxon in 2017, at the same time that the EPA was dealing with issues related to pipelines and the Clean Power Plan. And Williams & Jensen also represents Cheniere Energy, the only company in the United States to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) overseas.

Hart himself was also involved on several client accounts with business directly before the EPA — including lobbying on behalf of Owens-Illinois, a glass bottle manufacturer that, in 2017, settled violations of the Clean Air Act with the EPA.

In December, Pruitt made headlines for his decision to head to Morocco to promote U.S. LNG exports  — a trip that seems even more questionable given that Cheniere Energy is the only U.S. company with the infrastructure in place to benefit from an increase in the export of liquefied natural gas. It’s unclear whether Steven was involved in the decision to travel to Morocco, or if Williams & Jensen had anything to do with the trip. But it does raise questions about whether any of Pruitt’s work at the EPA was influenced — explicitly or otherwise — by his relationship with Steven Hart.

What did the White House know and when?

According to the Daily Beast, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was blindsided by revelations about Pruitt’s condo deal and a subsequent story from the Atlantic detailing how Pruitt had gone around the White House to approve significant raises for two of his closest political aides.

But a story published on Thursday by InsideEPA suggests that the deluge of information about Pruitt’s scandals has actually come from a source very close to Kelly: His former senior aide Rob Porter, who resigned from the White House in February after allegations of domestic abuse from two former wives became public.

Porter, InsideEPA reported, leaked information about Pruitt in retaliation against Samantha Dravis, a former girlfriend of Porter’s who also served as a top aide to Pruitt. Dravis — who announced on Thursday that she would be resigning from the EPA — reportedly was the one who told White House officials about Porter’s history of domestic abuse.

View the post here.