Threats against EPA’s Pruitt wildly exaggerated, security precautions unnecessary: Senate Democrats

A pair of Senate Democrats on Tuesday said they’ve seen private assessments that show EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has not faced the kind of threats he’s claimed, and that the agency’s spending on a full-time security detail for Mr. Pruitt aren’t warranted. In a letter released Tuesday morning, Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island released parts of confidential materials — including an “internal EPA Intelligence Office report” — that they contend prove Mr. Pruitt and his aides are greatly exaggerating the nature and number of threats against the administrator. “It is hard to reconcile the public statements of EPA, and the president, with these internal and external assessments. It may be that the materials we have been provided are incomplete and that EPA has additional information that justifies its public position,” the Democrats wrote in a letter to Sen. John Barrasso, Wyoming Republican and chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, asking that the panel hold immediate hearings on the matter...MORE