Pruitt job safe because Oklahomans not that smart

Satire from Ted Block

AROUND THE BLOCK

News with a Twist

As Pruitt’s offenses mount, why won’t Trump fire him?

Huckabee Sanders: "Even Arkansans know people from Oklahoma aren’t clever enough to do all these things.”

The question bouncing around Washington these days: Why hasn’t Scott Pruitt, the embattled EPA Administrator, been fired by President Trump yet?

First, a summary of his scandalous indiscretions:

• He baldly lied to Congress during his confirmation process, saying he didn’t use his private email for public business, when conclusive evidence showed he did; he used it to coordinate strategy with Big Oil, which is why he lied about it in his sworn statements. That’s a felony.
• After the White House denied Pruitt’s request to give two close aides a raise, he did it anyway, exploiting a legal provision meant to hire hydrology experts to instead pay the aides. That’s a misuse of the Safe Drinking Water Act. 
• It turns out that one of those aides, Millan Hupp, coordinated Pruitt’s personal housing search in D.C. That’s a violation of government ethics rules.
• While that search was underway, Pruitt took a below-market rent deal from a lobbyist whose firm was pushing for a controversial gas pipeline (which Pruitt approved). That constitutes an undisclosed gift from the lobbyist to Pruitt.
• Pruitt has racked up over $118,000 in first-class air travel in 2017, whining that our “toxic” political climate means that people aren’t nice to him in coach. He’s spent $58,000 of that taxpayer money flying back and forth from Oklahoma, where he is rumored to be mulling a Senate run.
• Pruitt also blew $36,000 on a military jet to New York in order to catch a $7,003 flight to Rome for a conference. He spent $40,000 to fly to Morocco to promote natural gas exports.
• All this, plus spending $43,000 on a soundproof phone booth in his office and $800,000 (and counting) for a ’round-the-clock security detail that even went with Pruitt’s family to Disney World.

At a press briefing, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee “Colonel” Sanders was asked, given this litany of Pruitt malfeasance, why the president hasn’t seen fit to fire him. 

“Look, the president has heard all the charges being lobbed at Administrator Pruitt and frankly believes they’re all lies and fake news being perpetrated by the Bezos lobbyist Washington Post and the failing New York Times," Huckabee "Colonel" Sanders said. "After all, Mr. Pruitt is from Oklahoma and there’s no way anyone from Oklahoma could be clever enough or devious enough to dream up all these ways to cheat. Look, I’m from Arkansas and we get accused of not being the sharpest knives in the drawer all the time. But even we consider folks from Oklahoma to be dull, dull, dull.”