Scott Pruitt Before the E.P.A.: Fancy Homes, a Shell Company and Friends With Money
Source: NYT
The lobbyist said that after the 2003 gathering, Mr. Pruitt who had a modest legal practice and a state salary of $38,400 reached out to her. He wanted to buy her showplace home as a second residence for when he was in the state capital.
-snip-
A review of real estate and other public records shows that Mr. Pruitt was not the sole owner: The property was held by a shell company registered to a business partner and law school friend, Kenneth Wagner. Mr. Wagner now holds a top political job at the Environmental Protection Agency, where Mr. Pruitt, 49, is the administrator.
-snip-
According to real estate records, the 2003 purchase of the house for $375,000 came at a steep discount of about $100,000 from what Ms. Lindsey had paid a year earlier a shortfall picked up by her employer, the telecom giant SBC Oklahoma.
SBC, previously known as Southwestern Bell and later as AT&T, had been lobbying lawmakers in the early 2000s on a range of matters, including a deregulation bill that would allow it to raise rates and a separate regulatory effort to reopen a bribery case from a decade earlier. Mr. Pruitt sided with the company on both matters, state records show.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/21/us/politics/scott-pruitt-oklahoma-epa.html
Found thanks to a tweet from Walter Shaub:
Link to tweet
Zorro
(15,733 posts)He ended up with an 8 year jail sentence.
Red Pest
(288 posts)Just another gonif in an administration filled with more of the same.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,660 posts)highplainsdem
(48,959 posts)dalton99a
(81,432 posts)brer cat
(24,546 posts)Bernardo de La Paz
(48,988 posts)LastLiberal in PalmSprings
(12,578 posts)Mr. Smith is played by a corrupt, status-seeking grifter who hit the jackpot when his dim-witted friend became president and appointed him to head an agency he despised and was committed to destroying.
Hopefully it won't have the happy ending that "Mr. Smith" had. If it plays out as I hope, the ending will be deeply satisfying, with Pruitt and his cohorts in jail and broke from legal bills.
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)DeminPennswoods
(15,273 posts)He is an out and out criminal. I think when Michael Avenatti completes his work for Stephanie Clifford, he should move on to finding a client harmed by one of Pruitt's actions as Okla AG and sue.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,295 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 22, 2018, 11:16 AM - Edit history (1)
since the Oklahoma City purchase had apparently not been reported before. So we are unlocking this thread.