Documents contradict EPA claims on threats to Pruitt, Democrats say

Records from the EPA, Secret Service and a terrorism task force fail to back up EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s claims that he faces the kinds of threats that would justify his multimillion-dollar, round-the-clock security detail, two Democratic senators wrote Tuesday when asking for a congressional review of his spending. Sens. Tom Carper (D-Del.), the ranking member on the Environment and Public Works Committee, and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote to Chairman John Barrasso (D-Wyo.) on Tuesday demanding oversight hearings and citing the non-public documents: an internal EPA review, Secret Service threat assessments and a Joint Terrorism Task Force report. The Secret Service identified no “reports of behaviors of interest” against Pruitt, and internal reviews dispute “the administrator’s claims that the nature of the threats against him justify his expenditures,” Carper and Whitehouse wrote. The EPA Office of Homeland Security‘s intelligence team concluded that an earlier threat assessment prepared by Pruitt's security team "DOES NOT employ sound analysis or articulate relevant ‘threat specific’ information appropriate to draw any resource or level of threat conclusions regarding the protection posture for the administrator,” according to a section of the Feb. 14 memo reproduced in the senators' letter (emphasis included). The memo concluded that EPA intelligence officials had "not identified any specific credible direct threat to the EPA administrator," according to the letter. None of the incidents listed concern air travel, according to the letter. Pruitt’s aides have said he needed to fly first class after encounters with passengers. The senators said the records don’t match public statements from EPA and the president, who in a tweet suggested Pruitt’s expenses are justified. One view is “that certain factions within EPA have justified the exorbitant taxpayer spending incurred by the administrator’s first-class travel and large entourage of security personnel through unsubstantiated claims about threats to his security, either at the direction of the administrator himself or others in the agency,” the senators said. EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said Tuesday that “Scott Pruitt has faced an unprecedented amount of death threats against him and these threat assessments are conducted within [Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance] using information collected from the [Protective Service Detail], EPA’s Office of Homeland Security, and Inspector General.“ He pointed to interviews with EPA’s inspector general office discussing an increase in threats compared to the previous administrator’s tenure. source: https://ift.tt/2qjQSdr #Headlines by: eholden@politico.com (Emily Holden) Original Post: https://ift.tt/2qjQSdr https://ift.tt/2qjXfgR
source: https://droolindognews.blogspot.com/2018/04/documents-contradict-epa-claims-on.html