Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt last year had a top aide help contact Republican donors who might offer his wife a job, eventually securing her a position at a conservative political group that has backed him for years, according to multiple individuals familiar with the matter.
The job hunt included Pruitt's approaching wealthy party supporters and conservative figures with ties to the Trump administration. The individuals said he enlisted Samantha Dravis, then serving as associate administrator for the EPA's Office of Policy, to line up work for his wife.
And when one donor, Doug Deason, said he could not hire Marlyn Pruitt because of a conflict of interest, Pruitt continued to solicit his help in trying to find other possibilities.
The administrator already faces a dozen federal inquiries into his spending and management decisions at the agency, including his first-class travels, a $50-a-night condo rental from a lobbyist and the installation of a $43,000 soundproof phone booth in his office. At no point did he consult with EPA ethics officials about his months-long efforts to get his wife a job, current and former agency officials said.
In several instances over the past 15 months, according to the individuals familiar with those overtures, Pruitt made overtures to corporate executives and prominent Republicans whom he had met either while serving as Oklahoma attorney general or after joining President Trump's Cabinet.
Marlyn Pruitt worked as a school nurse in the early 1990s before focusing on raising the couple's two children
From 1991 to 1995, payroll records show, Marlyn Pruitt worked as a public school nurse in Jenks, a suburb of Tulsa, earning between $18,300 and $23,911 annually. A résumé she submitted to the school district shows she was certified in neonatal advanced life support and was a registered nurse in Oklahoma and Kentucky. It also identified her as a preschool Sunday school teacher.
Her nursing licenses expired in 1996, records show, just as Scott Pruitt was building a small legal practice in Tulsa focused on defending Christians in religious liberty cases.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.35854071ab5b
this may also help explain his behavior (Pruitt is the poorest member of Trump's cabinet)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ber-of-trumps-cabinet/?utm_term=.9c37145a3e82