I can’t decide if I’m more offended that Environmental Protection Agency director Scott Pruitt is so corrupt or that he’s so bad at being corrupt.
Three months after Scott Pruitt was sworn in as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, his executive scheduler emailed Dan Cathy, chairman and president of the fast food company Chick-fil-A, with an unusual request: Would Cathy meet with Pruitt to discuss “a potential business opportunity”?
A call was arranged, then canceled, and Pruitt eventually spoke with someone from the company’s legal department. Only then did he reveal the “opportunity” on his mind was a job for his wife, Marlyn.
“The subject of that phone call was an expression of interest in his wife becoming a Chick-fil-A franchisee,” company representative Carrie Kurlander told The Washington Post via email.
Marlyn Pruitt never opened a restaurant. “Administrator Pruitt’s wife started, but did not complete, the Chick-fil-A franchisee application,” Kurlander said. But the revelation that Pruitt used his official position and EPA staff to try to line up work for his wife appears to open a new chapter in the ongoing saga of his questionable spending and management decisions, which so far have spawned a dozen federal probes.
To begin with, there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to help your wife own a restaurant franchise. Normally, that’s a relatively simple process if you have the money. You fill out an application. Chick-fil-A is not Harvard University. They will accept you if you have the dough and a decent business plan. But, I suppose it can’t hurt to throw your influence around a bit if you have some. Making the EPA director happy probably isn’t either here or there to the people who run Chick-fil-A but it can’t possibly hurt. All Pruitt had to do is to make this call himself on his own time. Most likely, they would have told him where to download the application and maybe offered some tips for getting approved, much like they would for anyone else making that call. But, who knows, maybe he could have greased the skids a little bit. That’s how things often work, and it’s not a big problem.
Instead, Pruitt uses his staff to make the call and thereby crosses a bunch of ethical lines. It’s such a lazy form of corruption.
But…but…
They are all corrupt, these Trumpians. And all very bad at being corrupt as well. They have realized during a lifetime of corruption that the system does not give a shit!!! In fact, it encourages and rewards their corruption. Yes, they get sloppy. Why? Because they get fat and lazy.
Comfortable.
When Trump said he could shoot people on 5th Ave. and get away with it, that is really what he meant. he gotten away with so much worse!!!
And he knows it.
So do they all.
AG
to make the far-right anti-Earth EPA administrator happy. Seems like something they’d have some motivation to do.
That just magnifies the corruption, though, so your point stands valid: Pruitt is bad even at being bad.
what I meant was that they don’t have an obvious business need or financial reason to want to please the EPA director, regardless of party.
Prior to 2016, the entire fast food industry was under attack from NGO’s and Environmental Groups for everything from how the source their food to the materials that made their cups. The EPA would be the key federal agency to control such things as raw materials for packaging, which could have cost the industry billions just to change packaging alone.
Here is a example:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-kaas-boyle/chikfila-full-of-it-styre_b_8983618.html
The election of President Stupid and his appointment of fellow two-bit conman Pruitt killed a lot of the momentum for this stuff. Yet the industry still freaks out even today when a municipality just bans plastic straws.
So, for all we know, Mr. Pruitt could be calling any Fortune 500 with any kind of EPA environmental liability and trying to play Let’s Make A Deal.
Booman, you probably have this wrong.
Con men don’t use their own money. Almost certainly he wanted the franchise for free. THAT’S why it did not go through.
My guess is Chick-fil was a trial balloon to start a multiple franchise empire, and they started with Chick-fil because they are the least likely to call the FBI, being a hate group and all. Think about it…the wife of head of the EPA wants to run a single fast food franchise? With all those hassles? Not likely.
The call with the legal department is where he was given the bad news….pay the price. And Chick-fil did what a company is supposed to do….have a lawyer deliver the message.
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Interesting speculation and quite possible, particularly given how egregiously and weirdly crooked Scott Pruitt is.
I DID wonder at the notion of Pruitt’s wife actually running a Chik-Fil-A franchise. I have no idea what her skill set and prior relevant experience is, but running a franchise is tough. I know from friends who’ve run different types. It’s a huge amount of work, and you pretty much have to know what you’re doing to be successful and actually, you know, make real money from it.
Pruitt is so damn lazy and CLEARLY used to grifting, that I couldn’t see either him or his wife actually, you know, getting offa their lazy butts and doing an honest day’s work.
Yeah, likely he was hoping that bigoted Cathy (owner of Chik-Fil-A) would toss a few, already prosperous fanchises at the Pruitts for free. That seems to be Pruitt’s MO, at any rate.
Ugh what an asshole.
Right after I wrote that I jumped over to Lawyers, Guns, and Money and they had the same idea.
On his financial disclosure he puts down his wife has no job, and suddenly she want to run a chicken place? Ya, sure.
I wonder what her background is, and If she has any experience at all in the industry. If the answer is `no’, then it’s definitely a grift.
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LOL!! Nail, meet hammer.
I scouted around just a tiny bit and couldn’t find much about Marilyn Pruitt:
http://dailyentertainmentnews.com/breaking-news/scott-pruitts-wife-marlyn-pruitt/
None of the articles I read mention where or if she went to Univeristy/college. The article above states:
“…she enjoys a rather low profile, leaving all the spotlight to her husband. According to The Intercept, she has reported no assets or income…”
No offense, but sounds like Marilyn’s been a stay at home mom, possibly with no educational credentials or real life job experience. But somehow she’s gonna run a franchise and make gobs and bags and bundles of money.
Sheesh! The Pruitts are from OK, where the cost of living is low. They’re now finding out how expensive life can be for the rest of us. They’re gotten thems are big ole $1.8 million dollar house in OK (must be huge) on an ARM mortgage.
No wonder skeevy weasle Pruitt’s grifting around trying to figure out how to cash in on some easy money.
What a pair of LOSERS.
Welcome to OUR world, Scott & Marilyn – where it’s tough to make ends meet and you might lose your house to foreclosure because you thought you’d be able to CON more money than what you’re getting.
Maybe Big Boss Tweed, er, Trump’ll throw some chump change atcha.
Good luck. Losers.
That article mentions Agnew, and it’s a great comparison for much of Trumps cabinet. Just shaking them down.
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A shame that we don’t have professional journalists to look into the sort of things that you and nalbar are speculating about. It seems like it might be within the, er, job description, and even be the type of thing that might actually bring Pruitt down. He’s trying a shakedown, after all.
But we can’t have that–professional journalists, I mean. Shakedowns by the EPA chief, those we CAN have!
Apparently becoming a Chick-fil-A franchise owner is very selective. A Business Insider article says they receive 20,000 inquiries a year and open only 75-80 new franchises. They interview family, friends and business partners of applicants.
I looks to me like Pruitt was trying to follow Jared Kushner’s method for getting into Harvard.
The article also says “The ideal franchisee has successfully managed his or her personal finances, is results-oriented, and has no other active business ventures.” That’s about as far as you can get from a description of Pruitt.
https://amp.businessinsider.com/opening-a-chick-fil-a-franchise-2016-1?
Yes, I read that as well. As much as I dislike the bigoted homophobic owner, Cathy, and his disgusting “food,” apparently Chik-Fil-A can be a pretty good franchise to own.
That said, it’s apparently very competitive to purchase a franchise, even if the initial outlay of money – $10,000 – isn’t that huge. But it looks like the corporation really vets potential new franchise owners – as it should – to insure that they’re a good bet/risk.
No doubt, Pruitt wanted to go around all those rules and procedures and vetting and get bigoted Cathy to just give Marilyn a franchise for free without any vetting, etc. Interestingly enough, Cathy wisely had his his Lawyers respond to Pruitt.
Cathy may be a bigoted shithole, but I guess he ain’t stupid!
I feel the same way. Damnit, a powerful head of a cabinet level agency should be worth more than he’s selling it for.
I remember sending $25 to Agnew’s defense fund when I was a young enlisted Marine (making $90 a month) because I just couldn’t believe that the VICE-FUCKING-PRESIDENT would sell out for $25K.
If I’d been an officer, maybe I’d have known better …
. . . do you think I am?”
“We’ve already established that, now we’re just haggling over the price.”
(Old chestnut of a joke somehow seems apropos here. Omitted setup:
Man to beautiful woman — “Would you have sex with me for a million dollars?”
Woman — “Well, gosh, I’m a good girl, but gosh, a million bucks, that’s a lot of money, so . . . well . . . gosh . . . I guess so . . . ok.”
Man — “Well then how ’bout for twenty bucks?” . . . )
I’m betting that the lot of you have this wrong.
Pruitt is an ultra-privileged rich brat. He is just like Trump. So, when Trump was running for President, he said he could fix national healthcare, the Middle East issues, etc. with just a bit of management. I’m betting that he wasn’t lying for once and actually believed he could – because all the little people are just too stupid to do what he can do.
Peuitt probably believes that any moron can run a Chick-Fil-a and it would be a super easy way for his wife to make some cash.