Trump EPA head pushed agents to speed, run sirens

This article features Government Accountability Project’s whistleblower client, Kevin Chmielewski, and was originally published here.

Former EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt prodded his security agents to drive recklessly and turn on emergency lights and sirens to maneuver around traffic in the nation’s capital.

Interviews with agents who served on Pruitt’s security detail describe President Donald Trump’s first EPA head as habitually late for meetings and feeling entitled to use his motorcade to zoom around other cars, according to a newly released report.

The report — drafted by an agent in EPA’s Office of Criminal Enforcement, Forensics and Training, which oversees the administrator’s security detail, about a month before Pruitt resigned from the agency in 2018 — documents the frequent use of lights and sirens by Pruitt’s motorcade, egged on by the then-administrator himself.

“Can you guys use that magic button to get us through traffic?” Pruitt asked, one agent recalled.

Agents on the security detail were uncomfortable with the practice, believing those measures should only be taken during emergencies.

“Just because the Administrator makes himself late for an appointment, does not constitute us to arbitrarily turn on the lights and sirens to get him to his next appointment timely, to make up time,” an agent said. That agent also said it was awkward when Pruitt said “speed it up” and “we need to get there quicker.”

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