[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 95 (Friday, June 8, 2018)]
[House]
[Pages H5008-H5009]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
EMPEROR OF THE SWAMP
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 3, 2017, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Gallego) is recognized
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, in Trump's ``Cabinet of corruption,'' one
individual stands head and shoulders above the rest. He is a man that
Senator Udall crowned ``the Emperor of the Swamp.''
If we created a Mount Rushmore of American corruption, his face would
be carved into it. His scandals are so outrageous that even Sarah
Sanders has stopped defending him and just started telling jokes at his
expense.
I am speaking, of course, about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
I will give you an example. Pruitt tried to use his office to get his
wife a Chick-fil-A franchise. When he was questioned about it, the EPA
chief said:
It is one of the best restaurants in the country. We need
more of them in Tulsa and we need more of them across the
country. Anyway, it is an exciting time.
Mr. Speaker, don't get me wrong, I enjoy a chicken sandwich just as
much as any other person, but Scott Pruitt talks about Chick-fil-A like
they are some kind of social service or some group that hands out food
to the homeless. He thinks it is an organization setting up soup
kitchens and homeless shelters.
Frankly, this is probably one of the weakest excuses I have ever
heard from any administration, but this administration seems to
specialize in weak excuses.
Scott also rented a Washington, D.C., apartment from a lobbyist with
matters before the EPA. And it won't surprise you at all that he got a
really good sweetheart deal. Pruitt was paying $50 a night and was only
charged the days he actually slept there.
Now, for everybody back in Arizona who may not understand this, the
D.C. rental market is really high here. Let just assure you, what he
did was not normal and probably illegal. I am not a lawyer or a law
enforcement officer, but this arrangement definitely looks like a bribe
to me.
And that is not all. This week, we learned that Pruitt ordered his
government bodyguards to seek out a luxury moisturizer that is
exclusively offered to patrons of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ted Lieu),
my friend and colleague.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congressman Gallego
for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, what Congressman Gallego didn't say is, first of all,
both of us are veterans, and we serve on Active Duty in the United
States military because we believe in this country, we believe in
America, we believe we are an exceptional nation.
But Scott Pruitt has made a joke of Federal service. He is under 12
investigations. He has wasted taxpayers' money, he has used taxpayers'
money to enrich himself, and he has used taxpayers' money to help his
wife.
Based on what Congressman Gallego said about this lotion thing, he
had his personal security detail, paid for at taxpayer expense, drive
around to Ritz-Carltons to try to find lotion. That is why I have a
picture here of the Ritz-Carlton lotion.
There is also this thing, by the way, known as the internet. You can
just go on the internet and search for Ritz-Carlton lotion. The first
link will take you to the Ritz-Carlton shops, and he could have just
ordered it without using his taxpayer-funded staff to drive around to
find this lotion. This is just an example of the joke he has made of
Federal service.
Mr. Gallego and I are going to break down for the American people
today the top 10 scandals of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.
Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, before we go into the top 10, I think one
of the pretty scandalous other abuses of taxpayers is the fact that he
had his personal detail asking and searching for used Trump mattresses.
Now, this is not a joke, this is not from an episode of ``Veep.''
Your EPA Administrator, a supposed adult in the room, is using taxpayer
dollars to try to find used Trump mattresses.
Right now, all I can think of are two things. Number one, this person
is just egregiously using our taxpayer dollars in the worst possible
manner. And, number two, he is trying to set up one of the weirdest bed
and breakfasts in the history of Washington, D.C.
But this is actually real. This is not TV. This is actually happening
in your government.
Mr. Speaker, let me go into the top 10 things that EPA Administrator
Pruitt has done to embarrass this country, and possible corruption. And
10 is what we have. There are a lot more than that, but we have to at
least keep this somewhat bitable for everybody else.
Let me start with number 10, as recently reported: the mess hall.
Pruitt has overused his privileges at the swanky, but affordable, White
House mess hall, despite being warned against doing so.
Now, the mess hall is basically a cafeteria for the top officers of
the White House. I have been in it. I was there under the Obama
administration. It is an honor to be invited to go, and it is great
food at a very low price.
Pruitt has misused this privilege so much so that he has been asked
to not come back. You are that egregious that, as a sitting member of
the Cabinet, you have been told by White House staff to not come back
to the cafeteria. That tells you a lot.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ted Lieu)
to tell us about number nine.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, number nine is the dinner
reservation. It was publicly reported that EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt asked the security detail to turn on lights and sirens so that
they could drive him down the crowded traffic streets of Washington,
D.C., and get him to dinner at Le Diplomate restaurant.
That is an abuse of taxpayer funds, and that is not what sirens are
for. They are for actual emergencies, not to make sure that a Trump
Cabinet official can make his dinner reservation on time.
Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, I also recommend just taking the Metro. It
is much quicker, but that is just me.
Number eight, $130 fountain pens: Scott Pruitt has spent over $1,500
taxpayer dollars on personalized $130 fountain pens. Now, I recommend
the BIC pen. It does the job well.
But, more importantly, it seems like, on one hand, he doesn't seem to
mind spending taxpayer dollars on really expensive things, such as
these really fancy pens, and then personally, in his own personal life,
he is really cheap by looking for cheap used Trump mattresses. So he
is, essentially, using the taxpayer dollar as his personal piggy bank
so he can live the lifestyle he wants.
On to the mattress. Pruitt used his EPA staff to help him look for a
discount Trump Home Luxury Plush Euro Pillow Top mattress. It is
apparently his favorite.
He also inappropriately used aids to look for apartments and help
arrange family vacations to the Rose Bowl.
Ted and I are lucky to have some very smart, young staff, and they
work hard, but they are not here to be our personal valets. They are
here to make sure we do our job well, we get to our meetings, and we
have the resources that we need to make the right decisions.
They certainly aren't there to help you find the right type of Trump
Home Luxury Plush Euro Pillow Top mattress. I definitely don't
recommend that. Or, as Ted Lieu has said, there is the internet. You
can find it there also.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Ted Lieu).
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Mr. Speaker, number six is the lotion,
which we have already talked about. But what we didn't talk about is,
in
[[Page H5009]]
using his security detail, you should know, this is a really expensive
security detail 24/7. They have already spent $3.5 million on that
security detail in 2017.
{time} 1300
This is, again, just a waste of taxpayer funds. No other Cabinet
official has this kind of security, and it is something that we really
should look at if we had a functioning GOP House oversight structure.
Unfortunately, the majority here in the House has refused to look at
EPA's Scott Pruitt scandals, and I don't even know how they can defend
him at this point.
Mr. GALLEGO. Number five, first class travel: Pruitt has spent over
$100,000 on first class commercial travel since entering office, citing
security concerns, apparently not satisfied with his $3.5 million
currently spent on security escort.
Let me tell you, number one, unfortunately for, I think, many
Americans, nobody knows who Scott Pruitt is. You do not need to be
flying first class for, quote/unquote, security reasons, and you
certainly should not be making the American public be paying for your
first class tickets.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Number four, the $43,000 soundproof phone
booth: So EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is so paranoid that he wasted
$43,000 of your taxpayers' money to build a soundproof phone booth for
him to make phone calls.
So if the President doesn't want to fire EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt for his corruption, I think the President should just fire him
for being super weird, right? You have got Scott Pruitt using a
security detail to get lotion at the Ritz-Carlton, to have his staff
trying to find used Trump Hotel mattresses, and he has built this
private phone booth. That is just creepy and strange.
Mr. GALLEGO. Number three, unsanctioned raises: In a time in America
where every American is hoping to just get a pay raise next month,
Scott Pruitt was told: You are not allowed to give your employees--the
certain employees that he wanted to give--a pay raise.
He was specifically told: They do not deserve that pay raise. You
will not give them a pay raise.
So instead, he used an obscure provision of the Safe Drinking Water
Act to actually find a way to give them a pay raise in spite of the
White House saying: You will not give them a pay raise.
Now, this would be actually somewhat okay, in my opinion, if he was
actually trying to protect safe drinking water, but, in fact, he is not
doing that. He is actually only using the fund to pay for these
increases for his well-connected friends and get them higher pay.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Number two is the sweetheart condo deal
with lobbyists.
So Scott Pruitt got this deal with lobbyists that no ordinary
American could have gotten. It was a $50-a-night deal on a condo in
Washington, D.C., near the Capitol, and market rates were much higher
than $50 a night.
But in addition, he structured a lease so he only had to pay for the
nights that he was there. So many nights that he wasn't there, the
landlord just had to eat those costs. That is not a lease that any
normal American could have gotten.
The reason that Scott Pruitt got this is because he was dealing with
these lobbyists, who also lobbied on issues before him. This is what
most people would call corruption.
And before we go to the last one, which is about the Chick-fil-A
restaurant, I just want to say the fact that Chick-fil-A--I can't even
say this without laughing. Maybe Ruben Gallego can talk about this with
a straight face.
Mr. GALLEGO. Look, you have an EPA Administrator who is literally
using his staff to go track down and try to speak to the CEO of Chick-
fil-A to try to get a very hard-to-get franchise, essentially using his
public office to put pressure on them to get a very, very hard-to-get
and lucrative franchise.
In any world, if we had just told you that this was being done by 1
or 2 or even 10 people, this all would not just be really, really,
really weird, but really, really, really corrupt.
But the fact that there is one person that is doing this, and
consistently doing this, and has not been fired by the man who said he
enjoys firing people, by the man who had a show for so many years about
firing people, and yet for some reason, he cannot find a reason to fire
this weird, corrupt EPA Administrator, that is the problem here.
You have a corrupt Cabinet official and you have a Presidency that
will not keep him in check.
I yield to my good friend, Ted Lieu, to close.
Mr. TED LIEU of California. Again, Congressman Gallego and I served
on Active Duty in the military. We are veterans. We believe in this
country. That is why we are up here.
Some of the things we said today may have sounded funny, because we
are trying to point out the absurdity of why EPA Administrator Scott
Pruitt is still in office.
Scott Pruitt has wasted taxpayer funds, he has abused taxpayer funds
for his personal profit, he has abused his relationship with lobbyists
to personally profit, he has also abused his relationships to help his
family profit.
Scott Pruitt, at the end of the day, is not just an embarrassment to
us, he is an embarrassment to the Republicans in this House, to the
Democrats in this House, to the Trump Cabinet, and to the United States
of America.
Scott Pruitt has to go.
Mr. GALLEGO. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Lieu for his
comments during this Special Order.
To finish, we had a President who said he was going to come and drain
the swamp. Scott Pruitt is the swamp. He is the biggest swamp monster
there is right now when it comes to the culture of corruption here in
Washington, D.C.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time
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