The White House said Monday it is “looking into” reports that an aide to Scott Pruitt helped the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator track down a used mattress from one of President Trump’s hotels.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration is “certainly looking into the matter” when asked if the new reports had caused Trump’s confidence in Pruitt to waiver.
“I couldn’t comment on specifics of furniture used in his apartment and certainly would not attempt to,” Sanders told reporters.
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The allegations regarding Pruitt’s scheduler, Millan Hupp, came earlier Monday in a letter from top House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Democrat Elijah Cummings (Md.) and Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a senior member of that panel.
Pruitt previously confirmed that Hupp helped him hunt for apartments last year, but the letter reveals additional work Hupp said she did for Pruitt.
In one instance, she said she worked to help Pruitt buy an old mattress from the Trump International Hotel in Washington, which Trump’s company owns as part of a revocable trust.
That work, as well as the other personal work Hupp recounted, likely violates federal regulations prohibiting federal workers from providing gifts to their supervisors and their supervisors soliciting that work, Cummings and Connolly say.
Pruitt has been under intense scrutiny in recent months amid a slew of ethics controversies. He has racked up millions in security and travel expenses, and came under fire for renting a Capitol Hill condo from the wife of an energy lobbyist for $50 each night he stayed there, and constructing a $43,000 soundproof booth in his office.