EPA spokesman calls reporter 'piece of trash' for doing her job
EPA chief Scott Pruitt’s parade of scandals has made his staff testy.
Scott Pruitt’s multitude of scandals caused another EPA staffer to resign Wednesday, but the agency spokesman who called a reporter a “piece of trash” still has a job.
Top Pruitt aide Millan Hupp, one of two staffers to whom Pruitt tried to give huge pay raises earlier this year, resigned on Wednesday. The resignation comes after yet another embarrassing revelation, that Pruitt tasked her with personal errands that included trying to track down a used mattress from a Trump hotel for Pruitt’s home use.
According to The Atlantic, a top EPA official said Hupp was “tired of being thrown under the bus by Pruitt.”
She may also have been tired of working with people like Jahan Wilcox, the EPA spokesman Atlantic reporter Alaina Plott contacted by phone for comment on Hupp’s resignation.
Wilcox would not comment and instead said, “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”
Calling a reporter a “piece of trash” might have earned a firing in another administration, but in Trump’s, it might get Wilcox a promotion.
Hupp’s is the latest in a series of resignations by EPA staffers this spring. In April, top aide Samantha Dravis resigned amid Pruitt’s scandals, and four more staffers left in May.
But despite his many scandals, which continued this week with the revelation that Pruit tried to use his position to get his wife a Chick-fil-A franchise, Pruitt has managed to keep his job.
In fact, Trump made a point of praising Pruitt during a FEMA briefing Wednesday.
“People are really impressed with the job that’s being done at the EPA,” Trump said.
Pruitt is the subject of over a dozen federal investigations (15 by one recent count). But he continues to have Trump’s support because of his talent for destroying protections for clean air and water, and for undermining climate science.
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