Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt spent $60,000 in federal money traveling via private planes, and he still has his job. He spent another $43,000 building a sound-proof booth for his office, and he still has his job. He rented a condo from a lobbyist at below the market rate, insisted that his agency-funded security detail trail him on trips Disneyland, and Italy, requested that his motorcade turn on its lights and sirens for a trip to his favorite D.C. restaurant, and he still has his job. So it’s perhaps fair to predict that Pruitt will emerge from this latest scandal—which finds him and his son enjoying a University of Kentucky basketball game from VIP floor seats belonging to a billionaire coal baron—with his job similarly intact.

The New York Times reported Saturday that Pruitt’s courtside seats came courtesy of Joseph W. Craft III, an executive with Alliance Resource Partners who’s been lobbying for the reversal of Obama-era regulations on coal.

A major contributor to Mr. Pruitt’s campaigns in Oklahoma when Mr. Pruitt served in state government, Mr. Craft saw Mr. Pruitt at least seven times during his first 14 months at the E.P.A., agency records and emails show, and they were scheduled to appear together on at least two other occasions. That is more than Mr. Pruitt has met with representatives of any environmental group.



The relationship is so close that the two men trade text messages, with Mr. Craft proposing in one July 2017 exchange a possible “long-awaited” dinner and another visit with his company’s executives.

So far, being BFFs with the head of a government agency that’s supposed to be regulating his industry has worked out pretty well for Craft. It was in Craft's Kentucky hometown that Pruitt announced the repeal of the Clean Power Plan, just one month after he declined to enforce a regulation to stop plants running on coal from releasing toxins into rivers. That particular policy was suggested by a coal industry group that counts Craft as a board member.

Gabrielle Bruney Gabrielle Bruney is a writer and editor for Esquire, where she focuses on politics and culture.

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