EPA chief Scott Pruitt has spent millions on security, travel: report

The security detail and travel expenses for Scott Pruitt, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, have cost taxpayers millions of dollars, a report said Saturday. Pruitt’s 20-member, 24-hour security detail blew through overtime budgets and at times also diverted officers away from investigating environmental crimes, the Associated Press reported. But in March, a report in the Washington Free Beacon asserted that EPA appointees of President Barack Obama had expenses that matched or surpassed Pruitt's. Shortly after arriving in Washington, Pruitt demoted the career staff member heading his security detail and replaced him with EPA Senior Special Agent Pasquale "Nino" Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent who operates a private security company. Perrotta signed off on new procedures that let Pruitt fly first-class on commercial airliners, with the security chief typically sitting next to him with other security staff farther back on the plane. In addition, Pruitt’s hefty security detail reportedly racked up so much overtime that many hit annual salary caps of about $160,000. In his first three months in office, before pricey overseas trips to Italy and Morocco, the price tag for Pruitt's security detail hit more than $832,000, according to EPA documents released through a public information request by the Associated Press. Then during a trip to Italy in June, Pruitt was accompanied by nine aides and a security detail that cost more than $120,000. At least three congressional Republicans and a chorus of Democrats have called for Pruitt's ouster. White House Chief of Staff John Kelly also told President Donald Trump last week that he was “convinced” that Pruitt needs to step down, a White House official told the Wall Street Journal...MORE