About the latest Scott Pruitt scandal, there is absolutely no quibble concerning the facts, none, zip, nada. It is all documented in emails already obtained by both the Washington Post and the Rachel Maddow Show. The emails give times and dates as to correspondences that are not in question. Can I make this any clearer, no one disagrees about the facts?
Three months after Scott Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, his executive scheduler emailed Dan Cathy, chairman and president of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, – not a company normally associated with the Environmental Protection Agency – and with a weirdly worded, nebulous question: Would CEO Dan Cathy meet with Pruitt to discuss “a potential business opportunity”?
Emails went back and forth, with Chick-fil-A executives scampering to attempt to figure out what it was that the head of the Environmental Protection Agency might want to meet about concerning their company’s business.
First, a call was arranged, but the original call got canceled. Eventually, Pruitt did place a call taken by someone in Chick-fil-A’s legal department. Only at that point, after numerous back and forth emails, frantic executives wondering what could possibly be going on, and canceled meetings/phone calls, only at that point, did Pruitt state that the “business opportunity” to be discussed would be … whether or not he could get his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise.
“The subject of that phone call was an expression of interest in his wife becoming a Chick-fil-A franchisee,” company representative Carrie Kurlander told The Washington Post via email.
Swamp?
What the ever-living fck?
Look, I am not the most cautious person on Earth, and as an attorney, I have done some things that could easily have gotten me in trouble had my “stupidity defense” not worked so convincingly (because it was the truth), that I truly did not know better. But, one rule that I do know, and one rule I know that every government employee, right down to Scott Pruitt’s own secretary, every government employee, all of them know that they cannot use their government position for personal financial gain.
Lest you think this was just some guy trying to call and get around some paperwork, you don’t know enough about the process of getting a Chick-fil-A franchise. According to Rachel Maddow, Chick-fil-A gets 40,000 applications for franchises per year, and gives out 100. The process begins with an online application and goes from there. Obviously, it is extremely difficult, time consuming, with the odds of winning about as great as winning the lotto.
Perhaps that is why Scott Pruitt wanted to meet with the CEO of Chick-fil-A privately about a “business opportunity” – to get rid of some of that “in the way stuff” and increase the likelihood that a franchise would be granted. And if Scott Pruitt is that bold (he has to know all these emails are on both government and Chick-fil-A servers, and subject to FOIA requests) I ask you this, my loyal readers. Has Scott Pruitt demonstrated anything to you, during his year in office, indicating that he wasn’t ready to use his office, again, to sweeten the deal to get his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise? Threats? Perks? Whatever it took? I mean this is a guy who rented a luxury condo from a lobbyist who did business with the EPA, for $50 a night. (Cute, at that rate, why charge at all?).
I wasn’t totally tuned into the whole obviousness of this mess earlier today when I watched the White House daily briefing and the inexcusable Sarah Huck-Sand bat questions about the matter away, or I would have been even angrier during the daily briefing, which I thought was impossible, until now.
I swear on my bass bait, if Scott Pruitt has a job by the end of the business day tomorrow, it is because he has the video of Trump in the Moscow hotel room – there’s no other explanation.
SUPER COMMENT FROM FACEBOOKER Marilyn Hawkins:
That is probably one of the many nefarious things he does from his government office that he needs to hide in his $45,000 phone booth. He needs firing badly
**Due to overwhelming demand, and inability to defend the oversight any longer, I am now on Twitter, please follow me @MiciakZoom
