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We already knew that Trump-appointed EPA head Scott Pruitt's $43,000 installation of a "secure phone booth" in his office closet was weird and paranoid. Now the government's own minders have concluded it was also illegal.
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.
Pruitt won't be going to jail over this, of course. Over something else, possibly, but not this. It's just another example of the administration's Republican B-tier shouting and wailing about government spending while breaking ethics rules left and right to ensure that they, personally, get entitled to private jet flights, new office furniture, expanded security details, and a freakin' Cone of Silence in their closet for their personal gossip needs.
On the other hand, that may be too much to read into this. Scott Pruitt is a case unto himself; by all available evidence, he is genuinely out of his gourd. For all we know he uses his secure closet phone booth to talk to his imaginary friend Sniffles, a two-ton invisible rhino who dispenses soft-serve ice cream from his invisible horn. Make a run for it, Sniffles. They're onto you.