OPINION:
One of the more sickening episodes of the full-court press by members of The Swamp against EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is the claim that he has spent too much money on extravagant security details.
Democrats in the Senate have questioned the legitimacy of death threats against Pruitt and his family and have demanded hearings to investigate the matter:
Two top Democrats on the committee, ranking member Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, on Tuesday demanded such hearings, saying they have confidential documents that contradict public statements made by Pruitt, EPA spokespersons and President Donald Trump regarding the administrator’s security spending.
The lawmakers in their letter asserted that the documents in their hands fall far short of supporting claims by Pruitt’s office that he needed elaborate security measure to protect him from death threats.
“Documents provided to us by EPA official(s) suggest the agency has relied on questionable threats to the Administrator, including reports of non-violent protests, negative feedback about the administrators actions or other First Amendment protected activity to justify millions of dollars in additional security spending, inducing first-class air travel, as compared to his predecessors at the agency,” Carper and Whitehouse wrote.
This is how vicious the opposition to Pruitt has become. As if a person would go out of their way to have an obtrusive and heavy-handed security detail for no good reason.
CBS News has obtained (probably from staffers at the EPA hoping to push back on the despicable narrative from Senate Democrats) documentation on just some of the death threats against Pruitt that had been detailed in August 2017 and, no, the threats are not isolated to anonymous tweets:
In an email to the EPA’s “Threat Coordination Group,” Patrick Sullivan, the assistant inspector general for investigations at the EPA outlined an incident that occurred on March 6, 2018, in which a trespasser gained entry to the EPA headquarters and identified himself as a student attending a “Microsoft event.”
“The person asked about Scott Pruitt and wanted to know where Pruitt’s office was and if Pruitt ever walked in the hallway outside the room,” wrote Sullivan.
The intruder was soon escorted out of the EPA but called the desk phone of an employee and left voicemails following the intrusion claiming “he can gain entry into EPA space anytime he wants.”
The security vulnerability was soon thereafter investigated.
The threats are not isolated to Pruitt, himself. His wife and EPA staffers have also been targeted.
McCarthy’s office received a series of hostile phone calls from a person who is currently being prosecuted for making “Felony Threats.” The caller said, “I will kill ya’ll (sic) and f*** up Gina McCarthy,” according to the report.
The Daily Caller also has a summary of some of the threats Pruitt has had to deal with presumably from global warming enthusiasts who care more about carbon emission hysteria than they do human life:
Investigators flagged one tweet that stated: “Pruitt, I’m gonna find you and put a bullet between your eyes. Don’t think I’m joking. I’m planning this.” Investigators determined the threat came from someone living in India. The investigation is ongoing.
These types of threats were a common occurrence, the report notes.
For instance, another person mailed a postcard to Pruitt telling him to “get out while you still can, Scott, you are evil incarnate you ignorant fuck.” An investigation was unable to determine who sent the message. The case was not presented to the United States Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
Pruitt’s opponents hate how effective he has been (as we detailed last week) and they hate that President Trump has stood by him in the face of unfair and duplicitous attacks against his ethics and credibility. But to question the cost of his security detail for partisan purposes is beyond the pale.
It’s time for Senate Republicans to unequivocally stand behind Pruitt and publicly shame these Democrats for their unprecedented attacks. They are even going out of their way to minimize real and credible threats against a man’s wife and against innocent government workers.
It’s time for a Joseph Welch moment. “Have you no decency? At long last, have you no shame?”
