It started way back on Sept. 27, 2017, with a Washington Post report exposing how Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt “took charter, military flights that cost taxpayers more than $58,000.”
More than nine months later, and after numerous ethical controversies involving mismanagement of taxpayer dollars, financial relationships with lobbyists and abuse of government staff, Pruitt finally resigned.
Pruitt’s resignation could be a sign of things to come, should Democrats regain control of the House of Representatives in November.
Earlier this week, Axios’ Mike Allen reported on how alumni of the George W. Bush administration “formed a secret “Oh Sh@# Group” to prepare for the Democratic takeover of 2006. They understood that Democratic rule meant Democrats would have subpoena power, and that “oversight committees [were] going to bombard” the administration with “calls for testimony and documents” that would include “your spending, your email, your calendars, your notes.”
In March, I wrote that “a Democratic House majority, and specifically the Oversight committee, will be capable of generating a storm that threatens the future of the Trump presidency.”
Oversight committee Democrats, led by ranking member Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), have already proven very effective, even in the minority without deposition or subpoena authority. The same day Pruitt resigned, Cummings sent a letter to the EPA’s inspector general, informing him of evidence the committee had obtained about a dinner Pruitt had in Rome with a cardinal who’d been charged with sexual assault. The meeting had been suspiciously removed from Pruitt’s public schedule. Cummings also obtained additional evidence of Pruitt “routinely asking senior EPA staff to help his family members ― including his wife and his daughter ― while they were on EPA premises during official work hours. These requests included helping his wife find employment as a political fundraiser and helping his daughter obtain a White House internship and a legal fellowship.”
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