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Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt worked directly with a top energy lobbyist, and without a real estate broker, to set up a $50-a-night rental room in a prime Capitol Hill building co-owned by the lobbyist’s wife during his first six months in Washington, a source familiar with the arrangement told ABC News.
Pruitt was permitted to pay rent for just a single bedroom in the upstairs condo unit, even though the other bedrooms in the unit were unoccupied, the source told ABC News.
In all, Pruitt paid $6,100 to the limited liability corporation for the Capitol Hill condo co-owned by Vicki Hart, whose husband J. Steven Hart is chairman of a top D.C. lobbying firm and who is registered to lobby for several major environmental and energy concerns, according to Bloomberg News which first reported the payment arrangement.
The EPA allowed Bloomberg News to review copies of canceled checks that Pruitt paid to the condo owner for using the room for roughly six months. The news outlet reported that the checks show varying amounts paid on sporadic dates — not a traditional monthly “rent payment” of the same amount each month.
EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox did not respond to calls or emails from ABC News.
“I think it certainly creates a perception problem, especially if Mr. Hart was seeking to influence the agency,” said Bryson Morgan, who served as Investigative Counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives Office of Congressional Ethics.
Rules against improper gifts do not only apply to items given free of charge, Morgan said. There are other considerations when reviewing the arrangement, including the terms of the agreement.
“It’s not just if he is paying market rent,” Morgan said. “A short-term lease is expensive. Is he given the ability to end it any day? Is this an arrangement any other person could get on the open market? My assumption would be this situation does not involve the hallmarks of a specific fair market transaction,” he said in an interview conducted before the checks were revealed.
The new disclosure comes as Democrats in Congress are demanding that Pruitt disclose to them more details about his 2017 use of the Capitol Hill home.
U.S. Rep. Don Beyer, a Virginia Democrat called on Pruitt to “immediately make clear the terms of his housing agreement” and “publish all correspondence” with the veteran lobbyist whose wife co-owns townhouse.
Hart is the chairman of lobbying firm Williams and Jensen that lobbies on EPA policies like the Clean Air Act, according to its website. The firm also lobbied on issues related to the export of liquefied natural gas and represented Cheniere Energy Inc., which owned the only active Liquid Natural Gas export plant in the United States at the time.
Pruitt traveled to Morocco last December and the EPA said in a press release that liquid natural gas exports a topic of discussion during that trip.
Last year, Cheniere Energy Inc. reported paying Hart’s firm $80,000.
Hart’s firm specifically lobbied on “issues related to the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG), approval of LNG exports and export facilities.” The firm also lists on its website that it lobbies on other EPA policies like the Clean Air Act.
The EPA did not respond to ABC News’ questions about whether Hart’s lobbying firm had any involvement in arranging meetings during Pruitt’s trip to Morocco.
Cheniere Energy spokeswoman Rachel Carmichel told ABC News the company ended its relationship with Hart’s firm in December 2017. The spokeswoman went on to say Cheniere was unaware of the relationship between Pruitt and the lobbyist and had not used Hart’s firm to have conversations with the EPA.
Another lobbying client of Hart’s, the railroad Norfolk Southern, spent $160,000 last year on lobbying Congress on “issues affecting coal usage, oil production, and transportation, including EPA regulation.”
Norfolk Southern also declined to comment when reached by ABC News.
The head of the nonprofit watchdog group the Environmental Integrity Project and former EPA Director of Civil Enforcement Eric Shaffer called on the EPA’s inspector general and Congress to look into the issue.
“Does this explain why Pruitt flew to Morocco to pitch natural gas exports, which isn’t really an EPA concern?” Schaeffer wrote in a statement.
The EPA inspector general’s office is aware of the report, according to spokesman Jeff Lagda.
The agency’s inspector general is already looking into the cost of Pruitt’s travel and whether the agency followed all proper procedures.
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CARACAS, Venezuela — Frantic families of victims clashed with police and were still demanding answers on Thursday after a blaze ripped through a Venezuelan police detention center the day before, killing at least 68 in one of the nation’s worst ever prison disasters.
Details of the incident were still emerging, but late Wednesday, the country’s head prosecutor Tarek William Saab confirmed the death count in a tweet and said four investigators had been appointed to “clarify these dramatic events.”
“The chief prosecutor’s office guarantees that we will clear up immediately these painful incidents that have left dozens of families mourning, as well as establish the needed responsibilities,” Saab tweeted.
These statements came long after the fire erupted in the detention cells of the police station in Valencia town in Carabobo state, around 100 miles west of the capital, leaving families of the inmates frantic with worry over the fate of their loved ones.
“Yesterday, the conflict started early and continued through the day, but until it was impossible to keep hiding what was happening, the government didn’t give any information at all about it,” said Juan Miguel Matheus, a local opposition lawmaker.
“Part of the drama is that there was no list of dead because many of the bodies were incinerated and it was impossible to recognize them,” he added.
The director of the nonprofit prison watchdog group, Windows for Freedom, said the fire began after an attempted jail break went sour and inmates set fire to their mattresses.
The prisoners immediately began to succumb to the massive amounts of smoke from the burning mattresses in the cramped cells.
“The fire caused so much smoke that people started to die in the enclosed space,” said Carlos Nieta Palma, adding that the detention center had capacity for 35 people yet there were 200 crammed in there.
[In Venezuela, prisoners say it is so bad they eat pasta mixed with excrement ]
He said that his sources told him that the deaths were all due to asphyxia from smoke inhalation and the two women among the dead were there on conjugal visits.
Heavily armed police ended up resorting to tear gas to drive back families demanding information about those held inside.
“I don’t know if my son is dead or alive,” Aida Parra, who said she had last seen her son the previous day, told the Spanish news agency EFE. “They haven’t told me anything.”
In video footage from the scene, one woman who identified herself as the mother of a prisoner railed against police: “What we want is justice. Corrupt police threw gasoline in there … We want justice, we want to know what is happening.”
The fire was one of the worst jail disasters in a country where human rights officials say that prison conditions are among the worst in Latin America. In 1994, a prison fire in the state of Zulia killed at least 100 prisoners. Last August, at least 37 inmates died in a riot in the southern state of Amazonas.
In a statement, the nonprofit watchdog Observatory of Prisons said: “We have been warning of the grave situation of police detention centers that put the lives and personal integrity of the detained at risk … The deaths have to be investigated to define responsibilities, we express our condolences to family members.”
Matheus, the lawmaker, said the tragedy highlighted the crisis in the country’s penal system since the lack of adequate prisons in the country meant inmates were often jammed into cramped detention centers in police stations — often for years while they await trial.
“People are in limbo there,” he said, promising to bring the matter up in the National Assembly when it met again on Tuesday.
Faiola reported from Miami.
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