We begin today’s roundup with Julian Zelizer’s piece at CNN. He is a history and public affairs professor at Princeton University and provides some context for why corrupt EPA chief Scott Pruitt was allowed by Trump to stay in his position for so long:
Over his 18-month tenure, Pruitt, who was an anti-environmental warrior for the right, amassed a long record of ethically questionable practices and was facing over a dozen separate investigations. In the history books, he will likely go down as a poster child for Cabinet officials who didn't believe that conflicts of interest matter and who were willing to use their office for material gain.
Pruitt's alleged wrongdoing draws attention to an issue at the heart of the Trump administration: ethical corruption. Pruitt's problems comported with a White House that seems to mock concerns about good government, and the idea that public officials work first and foremost to serve the public interest and not for personal gain.
Rick Wilson at The Daily Beast also explains how the resignation of one corrupt official is a drop in the bucket compared to the culture of corruption in Trump’s administration:
Donald Trump is unequivocal proof that As hire Bs and Bs hire Cs, and Trump hires people without the judgment, qualifications, ethical foundations, and moral stature to run an underground bum-fighting operation. Scott Pruitt’s obvious money problems should have screamed out in any background check, to say nothing of a Senate confirmation hearing.
Pruitt is a man, like so many of Trump’s claque of low-rent hoodlums, bus-station conmen, edge-case dead-enders, and caged-immigrant child porn aficionados, utterly unsuited to a role of public trust and responsibility.
The New York Times warns that Pruitt’s replacement may be less corrupt but on policy still represents a major danger to America by refusing to address climate change and environmental protection:
Mr. Pruitt’s successor, Andrew Wheeler, is expected to stay the antiregulatory course, albeit presumably without drawing as many headlines, by avoiding his predecessor’s penchant for scandal. Mr. Wheeler is a former coal industry lobbyist and a former aide to Senator James Inhofe, the Oklahoma Republican who has denied the existence of climate change and has long opposed legislation to address that global problem. [...]
In the end, Mr. Pruitt was driven from office for having abused his position so outrageously. But if Mr. Trump continues down the same policy paths, as seems likely, Mr. Pruitt’s more lasting legacy, along with the president’s, will be an overheated planet and shortened life spans.