Senator Joins Ethics Probe

nvironmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has been caught repeatedly misleading Congress about his use of different email accounts during his six years as Oklahoma’s attorney general.

He said he used just one email, when he actually had two. He sent official correspondence from a personal address, and appeared to deliberately delay public-records requests to cover his tracks before facing a Senate confirmation hearing.

Now, a senator involved in that confirmation process is backing an effort that could get Pruitt disbarred in his home state, Oklahoma, for violating ethics rules.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) plans to submit a lengthy statement and 60 pages of evidence to the Oklahoma Bar Association on Tuesday for its investigation into Pruitt, whom he accuses of lying to him during and after the hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. The bar association began probing Pruitt in March in response to an ethics complaint filed by an environmental group and a University of Oklahoma law professor.

Whitehouse, in a letter provided to HuffPost before he submitted it to the bar association, says Pruitt’s “misleading answers, evasiveness, and stonewalling” prevented lawmakers from fully vetting the candidate before advancing his nomination for a Senate confirmation vote.