New Pruitt Question: Where Are His Emails?

By Emily Holden, Politico

25 June 18

The EPA administrator wrote only one email in 10 months to anyone outside the agency, if the official paper trail is to be believed. Watchdog groups don’t believe it.

n examination of Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt’s government email accounts has uncovered only one message he wrote to anyone outside EPA during his first 10 months in office — a number that has watchdogs questioning whether he is communicating in private.

 EPA says Pruitt mainly holds discussions in person or over the phone, which would explain the meager electronic trail for his external communications. But Pruitt’s critics remain suspicious — especially in light of all the steps the agency has taken to conceal his activities, from refusing to release his meeting calendars to installing a $43,000 soundproof booth in his office.

 Oversight groups said it seems implausible that someone as active as Pruitt, who meets frequently with political and industry allies, would have sent only a single email to someone outside EPA. Agency records also include evidence that Pruitt has used text messages at least once to set up a meeting with an Oklahoma lawyer.

 “The emails, if they exist, could show what these people want and then those emails could be compared to what the EPA does,” said Melanie Sloan, a senior adviser at the watchdog group American Oversight. “Americans should know what the EPA is doing, why it’s doing it and who’s influencing those decisions.”

 American Oversight also expressed doubts that EPA has reviewed all of Pruitt’s communications, as the law requires. Government officials can legally use private email accounts, but agencies are supposed to search those accounts when fulfilling public records requests.

 It’s not unprecedented for high-ranking government officials to shun email, but Pruitt has in the past used his private email for official business when he served as Oklahoma’s attorney general.

 EPA provided the email in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Sierra Club, which has been seeking Pruitt’s external communications for more than a year. In September, the group filed a lawsuit to compel EPA to respond.

 Agency spokesman Jahan Wilcox offered a simple explanation for the shortage of correspondence, saying in an emailed statement that “Administrator Pruitt works mostly in person through conversations.”

 But outside groups were skeptical.

 “It is entirely possible that he doesn’t use email, but that becomes suspect,” said Justine Cowan, an attorney helping lead the Sierra Club’s legal effort. “How is he conducting business, and is he doing that on purpose so that we don’t get the records? In this day and age, who doesn’t use email?”

 Previously released EPA documents show that a lobbyist helped plan Pruitt’s international travels, and that GOP donors both weighed in on policy decisions and set up meetings with him for friends. That makes the gap in Pruitt’s communications trail especially significant, American Oversight’s Sloan said.

 “When you’re a Cabinet secretary, you have enough people around you to send the emails, and you’re pretty busy,” she said. “On the other hand, I get the feeling Scott Pruitt likes to hide what he’s doing even from top staff, which would mean he’d be likely to correspond on his own.”

 Pruitt is facing a dozen investigations into his behavior, including his heavy spending on personal security and first-class travel, the pricey phone booth, a $50-a-night Capitol Hill condo deal he got from a lobbyist, and personal tasks that he had EPA aides carry out for him. The independent Office of Government Ethics has also expressed concern about more recent accusations that he used his position to try to land a job for his wife, and that he made inquiries to Chick-fil-A about obtaining a fast-food franchise for her.

 From February 2017 to December, the only message Pruitt sent from one of his epa.gov addresses to an external email account was a Sept. 1 response to a consultant with Capitol Hill Consulting Group, according to the records EPA provided to the Sierra Club. The consultant had invited Pruitt to a dinner organized by the American Council for Capital Formation.

 Pruitt also forwarded a second email with a speaking engagement request on Nov. 14 to an address that EPA redacted. The agency cited a legal exception for “personal privacy” in blocking out the address.

 EPA told the Sierra Club that a completed search turned up no other emails from Pruitt to outside groups. Pruitt — like past administrators — has multiple email accounts at EPA, but the Sierra Club agreed to exclude two that the agency said are used only for receiving public comments and scheduling purposes.

 Emails involving Pruitt’s scheduler also show he used what appears to be his personal email account to correspond with a friend and former Oklahoma County district attorney who wanted him to attend the opening of the Museum of the Bible in Washington. EPA redacted the address of the account Pruitt used for those messages, however.

 In total, the Sierra Club’s request for Pruitt’s messages to people outside EPA produced 25 pages of documents, including the two emails and nine text messages. The texts do not reveal whom he communicated with or whether the messages were to or from him.

 The Sierra Club says it has asked EPA to either search Pruitt’s personal email for agency-related messages or certify that he never used it for government business. If EPA does not respond, the environmental group could ask a judge to force a review of Pruitt’s personal email account.

 Pruitt has used his private email to conduct government work in the past, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office has confirmed. The Oklahoma Bar Association is investigating an ethics complaint alleging that he misled the U.S. Senate when he wrote in response to lawmakers’ written confirmation questions that he had not used his personal email for state business during his seven years as the state’s AG.

 In addition to private email accounts, text messages and encrypted messaging apps also provide possible ways for officials to communicate without using their government accounts. Those technologies are more difficult for groups to seek to search, according to records experts.

 Some of the Pruitt emails released to the Sierra Club raise questions about whether he was using any of these other methods.

 In May 2017, an Oklahoma lawyer who is managing director at Sequoyah Capital, a firm that helps energy companies raise money, emailed Pruitt’s former scheduler Sydney Hupp and said that Pruitt had texted him to set up a meeting.

 “Scott sent me a text and asked me to contact you about setting up a 20 minute meeting in Washington DC,” said Sam Hammons, adding that “although Scott and I have known each other for many years, I have attached my bio for your information.” Those email records were also obtained by the Sierra Club.

 In another message that Pruitt forwarded to an unknown address, Victor Schwartz, co-chair of the public policy practice group at the law firm Shook, Hardy and Bacon, emailed Pruitt in November and said he had “tried all other means” of contacting him. Schwartz wanted to know if Pruitt could speak at a Nashville meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group that represents conservative state lawmakers.

 Schwartz, a member of the group’s Board of Scholars, wanted to pursue an ALEC resolution to “curb regulation through litigation.”

 “As you and I discussed in May, it is inevitable the common law courts will try to undermine the deregulation efforts by expanding tort law. An ALEC Resolution would put sunlight on the issue and try to stop it or curb it,” Schwartz said.

 He signed, “Thank you for all you have done, your friend always Victor,” with a smiley face emoji. EPA blacked out the email address that Schwartz wrote to when trying to contact Pruitt.

 While EPA says Pruitt does his government business on the phone or in person, his desk and cell phone call logs show periods where he made or received calls only infrequently. The agency also redacted the numbers contacted in responses to records requests.

 EPA has been slow to respond to requests for information from Pruitt’s office in particular, and many requests have been subjected to an extra layer of review by political staffers, as POLITICO reported in May.