Comically corrupt Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt spent $43,000 to install a small Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) inside his office last year for reasons that remain a mystery.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) now says Pruitt broke the law by installing the spy-proof booth because he did not notify Congress.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the EPA did not comply with the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act by spending more than $5,000 on the phone booth without notifying Congress.
The EPA “was required to notify the appropriations committees of its proposed obligation,” the GAO wrote in the report. “By failing to provide such advance notice, EPA violated section 710” of the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act.
It's already been established that Pruitt's security concerns have been wildly exaggerated but, even if his concerns were legitimate, the EPA already has a SCIF in the building because the agency occasionally handles classified and sensitive information. Pruitt spent money to install a second SCIF so he wouldn't have to leave his own office.
When reports that Pruitt installed a booth originally surfaced last year, it was also reported that Pruitt shut down the floor his office is located on, installed a bio-metric fingerprint lock, hired a private security firm to sweep the office for electronic bugs, and posted guards outside. Pruitt also reportedly made phone calls from other offices before the SCIF in his office was completed.
To say that Pruitt has paranoid delusions of grandeur feels like an understatement. The scariest people in his life are government watchdogs.