Scott Pruitt, the embattled Environmental Protection Agency administrator, admitted Thursday that he signed off on controversial five-figure raises for political appointees, contradicting statements he made in a tense Fox News interview earlier this month. Speaking at the first of two House hearings, Pruitt said gave chief of staff Ryan Jackson the green light to use a special loophole in the Safe Drinking Water Act to boost the salaries of Millan Hupp and Sarah Greenwalt, two of his longtime aides from Oklahoma who now work at EPA, even after the White House rejected the request. “There were delegations giving him that authority,” Pruitt said in response to questions from Rep. Paul Tonko (D-N.Y.). Over the course of the first nearly four-hour hearing, the administrator defiantly blamed the media for his mounting ethics scandals. “I recognize there have been some very troubling media reports over the past few weeks,” Pruitt said in opening remarks repeated at both hearings.

Source: Huffington Post April 26, 2018 17:44 UTC