Scott Pruitt Was Too Corrupt for the Trump Administration — but Maybe Not for the Senate

Former Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt is running for Senate in Oklahoma. A handmaiden of the oil and gas industry who was seemingly too corrupt for even the Trump administration, blocking environmental regulations is his life’s work.

Former administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt speaking at the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, in 2017. (Gage Skidmore / Flickr)


Former Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt resigned in June 2018 amid a cloud of ethics scandals, seemingly too corrupt even for the Donald Trump administration. Now he is attempting to regain a position in the government — despite the fact that he has continued to make questionable moves on behalf of the oil and gas industry since leaving his post.

In late April, Pruitt filed paperwork to run for the open US Senate seat in Oklahoma to replace retiring Republican senator Jim Inhofe. Pruitt is now running in the June 28 Oklahoma Senate Republican primary election against multiple candidates, including Representative Markwayne Mullin and the Inhofe-endorsed Luke Holland, a former staffer for the senator.

The seat is considered solidly Republican, so whichever candidate emerges from the primary will very likely end up with a six-year term in the Senate.

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