Both actions came days after a pair of congressional hearings in which Scott Pruitt blamed his staff, including his security aides, for his massive spending on expenses unheard of for an EPA leader. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Pruitt's security, Superfund chief leave as probe heats up Both resignations came days after a pair of congressional hearings in which Pruitt blamed his staff for his massive spending.

Two top aides to Environmental Protection Agency leader Scott Pruitt have decided to leave the EPA as congressional scrutiny of his spending, secrecy and lobbyist ties intensifies.

The departures of Pasquale “Nino” Perrotta, a career EPA employee who headed Pruitt's security team, and Albert “Kell” Kelly, a former banker and longtime friend who ran the agency's Superfund task force, come days after Pruitt dismayed much of his staff by blaming aides for furors involving his massive spending on bodyguards, first-class flights, a $43,000 soundproof phone booth and a biometric door lock.


Perrotta's departure means that EPA’s inspector general, who has been investigating the security spending, can no longer compel him to cooperate with the probe. An IG spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday on how Perrotta’s departure would affect the inquiry or whether the investigators had yet spoken to him.

And Perrotta appears poised to add to Pruitt's problems: Staff of the House Oversight Committee plans to interview Perrotta on Wednesday, a committee aide told POLITICO.

Perrotta, who could not immediately be reached for comment, told ABC News he had resigned from the agency on Monday.

Separately, EPA confirmed to POLITICO that Kelly is leaving the agency after attracting controversy over his past, including being banned for life from the banking industry by the FDIC. Agency staff did not provide details on the timing of his departure.

"Kell Kelly’s service at EPA will be sorely missed," Pruitt said in a statement. Axios first reported Kelly's departure.

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Kelly, a longtime friend of the administrator's, was previously the head of Tulsa-based SpiritBank, which gave Pruitt multiple home mortgages over the years. It also lent him the money to purchase a stake in a minor league baseball team that Pruitt ran before being elected Oklahoma attorney general.

Kelly was also barred from ever working again in the banking industry as part of a settlement last year with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. over unspecified alleged loan law violations. Kelly last month defended the loan in question, saying there was "nothing untoward about it."

Pruitt has said Kelly's banking problems are unrelated to his EPA work, but told lawmakers last week that he would “encourage” Kelly to share details of the FDIC deal with Congress.

Democrats last week asked EPA’s inspector general to review Kelly’s hiring at EPA, as well as the Superfund Task Force he ran — and one of those Democrats, Virginia Rep. Don Beyer, said Tuesday that "Scott Pruitt should be the next to go."

"The exodus of Pruitt’s closest aides shows just how toxic his reign at EPA has become,” Beyer said in a statement. He added, “Albert Kelly was never qualified to run Superfund, his banking ban was a huge red flag, and his resignation is a positive development."

Pruitt has so far held onto President Donald Trump's public support, despite the multitude of investigations he faces in the executive branch and on Capitol Hill. He also continues to face a steady drip-drip-drip of new revelations about his running of the agency, including a Washington Post story Tuesday reporting that a former Comcast lobbyist, Richard Smotkin, helped arrange key parts of a multi-day trip that Pruitt took to Morocco late last year.

House Democrats also tossed a new allegation into the pile Tuesday, alleging in a letter that Pruitt — who supports Trump's calls for sharp cuts in the agency's budget — has floated the "financially unjustified" idea of putting a regional EPA office in his hometown of Tulsa, Okla.

Meanwhile, the House Oversight Committee is in the process of scheduling other interviews with senior EPA officials, the committee aide said. The agency provided more than 1,000 pages of documents Friday. “At this point, EPA is complying with our requests,” the aide said.

Besides being involved in issues such as Pruitt's security spending, Perrotta also might be able to shed light on still-unexplained details about the EPA chief's controversial $50-a-night Capitol Hill condo rental from the wife of a prominent energy lobbyist. In one reported incident last year, Pruitt's bodyguards had to break down the condo's door one afternoon because they feared he was unconscious. EPA has said Pruitt was resting after feeling ill.

Perrotta told ABC he resigned for personal reasons. "All of this press is taking a toll on my family. I decided to move on and it’s been an honor to serve," he told ABC. Perrotta said he will "fully cooperate and answer any and all questions" from Congress.

Perrotta, a former Secret Service agent who worked in various capacities at EPA since 2004, is connected to several allegations made against Pruitt in recent months, including that he steered a bug-sweeping contract to a colleague at an outside security firm he founded. There is "no truth" to that accusation, he said.

In the interview with ABC, Perrotta also denied allegations made by former EPA scheduling staffer Kevin Chmielewski that he threatened to come to his home and take his EPA parking pass after Chmielewski was dismissed earlier this year.

Multiple sources told POLITICO last month that Perrotta has been a driving force behind the rapidly increased security spending for Pruitt.

Perrotta did not answer phone calls from POLITICO on Tuesday morning, and EPA spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions about his resignation.

At last week's House hearings, Pruitt said his security detail had made decisions about some of the controversies besetting him, including the use of first-class flights to stay away from passengers who could pose a threat. For example, Pruitt said, he had asked his staff for “access to secure communication,” and "out of that came a $43,000 expenditure that I did not approve.”

Despite all the torrents of bad news, Pruitt got at least grudging support Tuesday from one Republican critic — Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, who accuses the EPA administrator of undermining a federal ethanol program vital to Midwestern corn growers.

Pruitt still shouldn't resign, Grassley said, citing his support for President Donald Trump's deregulatory agenda.

"Even though I think he’s screwing the family farmer ... I still think almost everything else he’s done as EPA director is the right thing to do," Grassley said. And he added, "with the Democrats filibustering everything, we don’t have time, with all the legislation and judges we have to get through, we don’t have time to get through another confirmation in the United States Senate."