A lobbyist and longtime friend of Scott Pruitt's helped to broker the EPA chief's controversial and expensive trip to Morocco late last year, The Washington Post reported.
Former Comcast lobbyist Richard Smotkin, who has known Pruitt for a decade, helped with details of the December trip, which cost taxpayers more than $100,000, the Post reported.
Further, Smotkin accompanied Pruitt and his staff on official and social events during the four-day trip and, four months later, secured a $40,000-a-month contract from the Moroccan government for public relations work, the Post reports.
That could pose problems for Pruitt, given the trip seemed to benefit Smotkin more — a potential violation of federal law — than it did to promote the EPA's mission: "protect human health and environment," the Post reported.
"It shows, at the very least, a tremendous amount of sloppiness, and it raises ethical issues about the relationship between Smotkin and Pruitt," Larry Noble, senior director and general counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, told the Post.
"If Pruitt did this to benefit Smotkin and did this to show that Smotkin has an in with the EPA administrator, then he’s using his official office to benefit a private person."
It's the latest percolating scandal to besiege Pruitt, whose spendthrift travel habits and decadent office upgrades have already incurred scrutiny from Congress, the White House, and investigations by his agency's inspector general.
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