Keeping Scott Pruitt Safe The EPA Administrator needs protection against unprecedented threats of violence.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/keeping-scott-pruitt-safe-1509578717
Reform in Washington is always difficult, but at the Environmental Protection Agency it’s also dangerous. Since the Trump Administration took office, the agency has investigated more than 70 credible threats against EPA staffers, with a disproportionate number menacing Administrator Scott Pruitt and his family. The EPA responded by beefing up his security detail, but Mr. Pruitt’s political opponents are now trying to hold these warranted precautions against him.
Mr. Pruitt has received more than five times as many threats as his predecessor, Gina McCarthy. These include explicit death threats. Some have referenced Mr. Pruitt’s home address. Federal law enforcement has determined that some of those threatening Mr. Pruitt are likely capable of carrying out acts of violence. EPA security has already caught suspects prowling around the administrator’s neighborhood.
Mr. Pruitt would doubtless prefer the absence of threats to the presence of security. But his critics have suggested he’s part of the problem. Mr. Pruitt is a “pallid, oily anti-environment corporate shill,” SFGate columnist Mark Morford wrote last week, and “when you send death threats to the world and all who live on her, the world will, quite naturally, send them right back.”
Reps. Peter DeFazio (Ore.) and Grace Napolitano (Calif.) have called for the inspector general to launch an investigation into Mr. Pruitt’s security measures. The expenditures “constitute potential waste or abuse of taxpayer dollars,” they wrote in an Oct. 4 letter. The duo also claimed that “there is no apparent security threat against the Administrator to justify such a security detail or expenditures.”
But the EPA inspector general’s office—in addition to the agency’s criminal enforcement division and protective service—recommended 24/7 security for Mr. Pruitt based on the unprecedented threats. A lean team of agents share the responsibility for safeguarding Mr. Pruitt, and their salaries will cost taxpayers roughly $2 million a year. The EPA’s other safety precautions include a $15,780 upgrade of the card-access system in EPA offices.
Mr. Pruitt didn’t invent these threats, and Cabinet members shouldn’t have to fear violence as a price of public service. When the federal government protects Cabinet members from those who would harm them for doing their jobs, it is protecting American democracy.
Comments are closed.
