White House official says Pruitt could do ‘better job’ using taxpayer money

A White House official said Wednesday that Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt could do a “better job” using taxpayer dollars.

“I think he would acknowledge that,” White House legislative affairs director Marc Short told CBS News when asked if Pruitt could be doing a “better job” handling taxpayer money.

The ethics of Pruitt’s official expenses have been questioned, prompting a mounting number of ethics probes into his behavior. Pruitt is being investigated for taxpayer-funded international trips to Italy and Morocco that included leisure activities.

Short lauded Pruitt’s oversight of the Trump administration’s environmental deregulation efforts while at the EPA’s helm, but said the director can’t make any excuses for questionable expenditures.

{mosads}

“We have to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars,” Short said. “I think that there are certain areas that the administrator would acknowledge were mistakes that he would want to fix.”

“But I don’t think that you can say that simply delivering on the agenda excuses misuse of taxpayer dollars,” Short continued.  

Multiple Republican members of Congress and White House staffers have called for Pruitt’s resignation in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General is also looking into a condo rental agreement between Pruitt and lobbyists from his home state of Oklahoma.

Pruitt is also facing probes into his use of taxpayer money for first-class travel. His head of security detail, who said the first-class travel was necessary for Pruitt’s safety, resigned Tuesday.