Grifting In Public With Your Tactical Pants Down

The sheer amount of money Scott Pruitt has managed to loot from the treasury in order to feed his vanity, paranoia, and utter inability to face criticism is impressive even by Trump administration standards:

Scandal-plagued Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has now spent more than $4.6 million from public coffers on security, according to documents obtained by The Intercept and Documented under the Freedom of Information Act. The amount represents a $1.1 million increase from Pruitt’s total security costs as released in another disclosure just a month ago.

Pruitt’s high spending on security has become the subject of mounting criticism and a host of official investigations: Several EPA inspector general investigations have been opened, as well as an ongoing investigation by the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee.

Records released under the Freedom of Information Act list expenditures totaling $288,610 on a range of security-related items. The EPA, according to three expense line items for April, spent a total of $2,749.62 on “tactical pants” and “tactical polos.”

Since last year, shortly after his Senate confirmation, Pruitt’s office began purchasing security-related items, including multiple vehicle leases, over $80,000 worth of radios, $700 in shoulder holsters for the radios, and a kit to break down doors, among other purchases.

An EPA spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

The expenses eclipsed spending by Pruitt’s predecessors. Former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who served during President Barack Obama’s first term, averaged less than a third of the travel and security costs accrued by Pruitt in his first fiscal year, according to records.

And yet the extraordinary level of corruption is still not the worst thing about him.