I find myself more impressed than anything by EPA head Scott Pruitt’s venality. Sure, the man is corrupt. But he’s corrupt in ways no one had ever even conceived of before! The man’s unflagging creativity in graft is inspiring, in its gross way, and his drive is something to behold. For the rest of us, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to pursue everything that Pruitt is accused of pursuing for himself. His scam is untiring, and I’m honestly in awe.
You know the greatest hits. He pulled the strings to try to get his wife a Chik-fil-A franchise. He dispatched aides to find a used Trump-brand mattress(????). He has demanded to be driven around the city looking for one specific lotion. All these are merely from the last two weeks.
Now we have a sports thing!
Buried in a New York Times story, buried all the way down in the 14th paragraph because there’s just so much of this shit, is the revelation that Pruitt exercised his power in order to get primo seats for the Rose Bowl, at face value, just five days before kickoff.
One aide helped book his travel to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., where Mr. Pruitt had secured seats near the 50-yard line for the face value of $175 each, documents show. The tickets, for Mr. Pruitt and his wife and two children, were purchased five days before the sold-out New Year’s Day game this year.
Mr. Pruitt bought the tickets, the records show, from a special allotment for the University of Oklahoma, which appeared in the game against the University of Georgia. Tickets for equivalent seats were on sale on the secondary market for as much as seven times the price paid by Mr. Pruitt, data from two ticket companies show.
According to the records, the Sooner source who helped hook Pruitt up was Renzi Stone, a university regent who just so happens to own a marketing firm that represents big oil companies, among others.
According to Pruitt’s spokesperson (the same spokesperson who told a reporter she was “a piece of trash” when she called for comment on yet another scandal), “Administrator Pruitt followed the regular process to buy tickets for any game.” Mmmhm.
Below is a letter from Rep. Elijah Cummings, ranking Democrat on House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, asking Stone for any communications with Pruitt and documentation for the Rose Bowl tickets. At this point, I genuinely don’t know what it’ll take for Pruitt to resign. Maybe we just sit back and see what he comes up with next.