Surprise! EPA head Scott Pruitt's personal soundproof booth didn't cost $25,000. It cost $43,000
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When we first learned that Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt had installed a $25,000 «soundproof booth» in his office so he could speak to who-knows-who about who-knows-what without the staff overhearing, we probably should have guSurprise! EPA head Scott Pruitt's personal soundproof booth didn't cost $25,000. It cost $43,000
When we first learned that Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt had installed a $25,000 «soundproof booth» in his office so he could speak to who-knows-who about who-knows-what without the staff overhearing, we probably should have guessed that it didn't really cost $25,000. It cost, of course, more. In total, the EPA appears to have spent more than $18,000 on the prep work, readying the space for a $25,000 soundproof booth that has brought Pruitt a wave of criticism and official scrutiny. The total cost for the project now appears to be closer to $43,000. There is still no convincing explanation—at all—of why Pruitt needed his very own secure communications booth installed into an office closet. From other available evidence, it appears to be because Scott Pruitt is both paranoid and a bit of a kook. Conversations with the new EPA boss must regularly descend into the surreal. «Sir, it looks like prairie dogs have gotten into the—» «You fool! This is an unsecured area! Quickly, into the Closet of Secrets!» The official explanation is that Pruitt needs his special soundproof booth to have super-ultra-secure conversations with, for example, the president. (This presidential team seems to have a penchant for back channels, whether they be to the head of the EPA or, you know, Russia.) But that is a nonsense explanation. The agency has long maintained a [Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility] on a separate floor from the administrator’s office, where officials with proper clearances can go to share information classified as secret. He could get on an elevator and, 90 seconds later, be at the agency's own dedicated secure space. Is he not allowed in that one? Does he, say, not have sufficient security clearance to be allowed in? Or are his own «secret» things too secret even for the agency's existing secret room? We don't know. He refuses to say. We might as well assume it's the Special Auctions Room, where Scott Pruitt entertains bids by industry leaders to overlook this or that environmental catastrophe, because that makes as much sense as any other explanation he has offered. It's either that, or the prairie dog thing. Read more