From Forbes to Tea Party, Allies on Right Rally for EPA’s Pruitt

• April 06 2018
• Jennifer A Dlouhy, Ari Natter

Conservative stars are coming out in force to save the job of embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Conservative stars are coming out in force to save the job of embattled Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, a zealous advocate of their small-government movement who is engulfed by allegations of ethical lapses.

Prominent Republicans and leaders of the Tea Party movement -- from Steve Forbes to Senator Rand Paul -- are penning op-eds, posting on Twitter and picking up the phone to personally beseech President Donald Trump to keep Pruitt at the helm of the EPA.

“He’s a conservative hero,” Dallas investor Doug Deason, whose family has given millions to right-wing candidates, said. “It would be a huge mistake to do anything other than come out and support him.”

High-profile business leaders such as billionaire oilman Harold Hamm have been enlisted to make personal entreaties and tell the president Pruitt has done more than other top administration officials to ease federal regulations standing in the way of manufacturing, mining and drilling.

The right’s fondness for Pruitt is matched by the animosity he inspires among the political left. Environmentalists have been campaigning against Pruitt since his confirmation in February 2017, casting him as an unabashed ally of corporate polluters who is dismantling regulations essential to safeguard the land, air and water.

Earlier: EPA Chief in Fox Grilling Denies Knowing Who Raised Aides’ Pay

“EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s tenure has been a part of the Trump administration’s culture of corruption, cronyism and incompetence," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Friday calling for Pruitt’s resignation. "Pruitt has displayed a staggering ethical blindness, and his abuses of office are representative of an administration that uses their powerful positions to enrich themselves and their friends."

Publicly, Trump has offered praise for Pruitt, telling reporters Thursday that he still had confidence in the embattled EPA chief and calling him "very courageous" amid a barrage of damaging revelations. Trump underscored that Friday with a post on Twitter saying Pruitt “is doing a great job but is TOTALLY under siege.”

Nevertheless, Pruitt’s standing at the White House is far from secure. Top administration officials have been skeptical of Pruitt’s explanation over how two close aides secured raises worth tens of thousands of dollars over the White House’s objection, according to people familiar with the matter. And they are frustrated by the spate of bad news surrounding Pruitt, including reports he rented a Capitol Hill bedroom from a lobbyist and that EPA staff who questioned him were transferred to other jobs.

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told Trump last week that Pruitt needed to go but the president is resisting firing him, according to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times.

Counter Effort

The conservative counter effort involves darlings of the right. Former Attorney General Edwin Meese III, former Senator Jim DeMint and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins have drafted a letter to Trump casting Pruitt as instrumental to the president’s mission to slash through Washington bureaucracy.

Republican Steve Forbes, the millionaire chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, Inc. who ran for president in 1996 and 2000, penned an opinion piece for Investor’s Business Daily arguing that Pruitt is under fire simply because he’s been too effective at "boldly redirecting the EPA" and reining in "a once-rogue agency that operated far beyond its constitutional authority."

"Pruitt is the right man for the job and it’s no wonder the radical left is screaming for his ouster," Forbes said.

FreedomWorks

Kenneth Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and Republican gubernatorial candidate, lent his voice to a roundup of praise for Pruitt that was circulated by the powerful conservative advocacy group FreedomWorks. The group also is recruiting conservative voices to join the cause, with a Twitter campaign urging supporters to call the White House switchboard with endorsements of the EPA chief.

Pruitt’s defenders are making a political argument too, with some warning that Trump’s support in Republican presidential primaries two years from now could be undermined if he jettisons one of the most conservative members of his cabinet.

And they see Pruitt as one of their own.

Dallas Cowboys

Deason, whose family has given millions to conservative candidates, said he sent texts and emails Thursday to staff members he knows at the White House in support of Pruitt.

“We burned a lot of chits to get him into that position,” Deason said of Pruitt, describing him as a “really good friend” who has joined him at Dallas Cowboys football games.

Pruitt’s supporters have warned that getting any replacement nominee approved by the Senate -- much less one as dogged as Pruitt -- could be impossible.

Unless a White House investigation were to prove Pruitt did something worthy of termination, Deason, who also donates to the political network led by billionaires Charles and David Koch, said he wants to see the president continue to support him.

The EPA leader was well known in conservative circles even before he came to Washington, having garnered support for his willingness to challenge the federal bureaucracy -- including the agency he now leads.

Pruitt built his political career fighting federal regulations he said stripped power away from states, including the Affordable Care Act, and in his previous role as Oklahoma attorney general, Pruitt joined more than a dozen lawsuits challenging EPA actions under the Obama administration.

Read More: Conservative Allies Rally in Bid to Save Embattled EPA Head

Pruitt’s star has only risen among conservative elites since he took over the EPA last year. Pruitt has proposed scrapping the Clean Power Plan, former President Barack Obama’s rule paring greenhouse gas emissions from electricity. He also is rewriting a water pollution rule and has effectively quashed an effort to write new limits on methane leaks from oil wells.

Pruitt has been a high-profile speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference for two years running, including a keynote address in February. And Pruitt has been a regular speaker in front of the Federalist Society, a group of conservatives and libertarians eager to reform the U.S. legal system.

"Without hyperbole, Administrator Pruitt is the most conservative member of the cabinet, both in temperament and action," said Republican strategist Mike McKenna. "He’s also the guy who has done the most for the president’s agenda; he’s simultaneously the most conservative and the most committed to the president’s agenda."

‘Obama Groupies’

Some supporters are appealing to Trump’s business sense. Others to his vanity. Senator Ted Cruz used Twitter to urge Trump not “to be duped and bullied by the Obama groupies” the Texas Republican said are eager to push Pruitt out.

And Paul tweeted that Pruitt, "likely the bravest and most conservative member of Trump’s cabinet," is necessary to help the president "drain the regulatory swamp." Paul is a Republican from Kentucky whose constant calls to slash government spending and regulations have made him a hero of the Tea Party.

The pro-Pruitt message is getting an assist from CRC Public Relations, a Virginia-based firm headed by Greg Mueller, onetime communications director for Pat Buchanan. The firm, which has sent circulated talking points and highlighted pro-Pruitt commentary, has a number of clients supportive of the EPA administrator, "including Tea Party Patriots and Steve Forbes," Mueller said in an emailed statement.

"Director Pruitt is advancing pro-growth and pro-environment policies that the center-right constituency has advocated for decades," Mueller said. "When a conservative leader like Director Pruitt is advancing conservative policies or under attack, we engage."

— With assistance by John McCormick