The Trump White House is reportedly not happy about news that Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt rented a room in a high-priced Washington D.C. condo that is owned by a top energy lobbyist's wife.
According to Bloomberg, "White House officials are growing dismayed about the questions surrounding Pruitt’s living arrangement, including his initial inability to produce any documentation about his lease or his actual payments" for the room.
Records obtained by Bloomberg show that Pruitt paid $50 per night that he stayed in the room in the condo, while also noting that the lease stipulates that he would not have unlimited access to the full condo's living space, which was primarily used by the condo's owner, health care lobbyist Vicki Hart, who is married to energy lobbyist J. Steven Hart.
Although the EPA has defended Pruitt by noting that he is paying a fair price for what amounts to a single room, Environmental Integrity Project director Eric Schaeffer says that Pruitt should have known better than to rent out a room from someone who is married to a lobbyist for the industry he's supposed to be overseeing.
"At the very least, it doesn’t look good for the administrator of EPA to have rented an apartment from the wife of an energy industry lobbyist who represents companies regulated by EPA," he says.