EPA/LEGAL/SCOTT PRUITT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “An Environmental Protection Agency lawyer said he wasn’t provided the full facts when he ruled there was no ethics violation in Administrator Scott Pruitt’s lease of a bargain-priced Capitol Hill condo with ties to a fossil fuels lobbyist. In the meantime, White House officials sounded increasingly doubtful Thursday [4-5-18] about Pruitt’s future in the administration, though President Donald Trump threw a public lifeline to his embattled environmental chief. Trump, asked if he still has confidence in Pruitt while boarding Air Force One, responded, ‘I do.’ In a letter dated Wednesday [4-4-18], EPA ethics lawyer Kevin Minoli said his finding last week that Pruitt was paying fair-market value was based on the assumption that Pruitt occupied only one bedroom for $50 a night, as outlined in the lease. Media reports later disclosed that Pruitt’s college-aged daughter occupied a second bedroom in the unit while she interned at the White House last summer. Minoli said he did not consider the value of a second room in his analysis. Pruitt paid about $1,000 a month, less than a third of what Minoli’s review found nearby two-bedroom homes listed for.”
–Michael Biesecker, “Ethics lawyer says he didn’t have facts about Pruitt condo,” The Associated Press, April 5, 2018 11:15 am