The Environmental Protection Agency confirmed Monday the content of internal EPA emails which seem to contradict the agency administrator’s claims that he was unaware of and didn’t approve big pay rises for two of his close aides. However, an EPA spokeswoman maintained there was no evidence in the emails that Scott Pruitt knew about the pay raises.
The Atlantic reported last week that Pruitt himself requested the pay rises, but that the request was declined by the White House. The EPA then used an obscure provision to give the staffers, Sarah Greenwalt and Millan Hupp, the raises, CNN writes. Last Wednesday, Pruitt said he didn’t know the two aides got the raises until Tuesday.
The agency’s spokeswoman confirmed the email exchange between Greenwalt and the human resources department at the EPA. In one of them, Greenwalt says that Pruitt indicated she should have a salary increase.
“There’s no way to prove what she said is true; a lot of people say the administrator said this or that,” said the EPA spokeswoman, who reached out to CNN to explain the emails. “While she may claim that the administrator knows about her raise, there is no email proof that I’ve seen, or communications or documents from Scott Pruitt to HR or to (Greenwalt) about that particular raise,” the spokeswoman added.
EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson took responsibility for the raises on Monday, maintaining that Pruitt had no “knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired.”
The spokeswoman also confirmed the existence of a second email exchanged between the White House and EPA. In it, the White House expresses concern about such significant raises, but notes that the administrator had indicated to move forward with it.
In an effort to explain the email, she said “the administrator’s office,” not the administrator himself, decided to go ahead with the raises.
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