“EPA’s Office of International and Tribal Affairs organized and led the effort around Administrator Pruitt’s official meetings with the Moroccan government,” Mr. Wilcox said in a statement Tuesday. “Additionally, Mr. Smotkin did not attend or participate in any official meetings with the Moroccan government.”

Mr. Pruitt last week faced pointed questions from two congressional oversight committees about his spending and management of the E.P.A., with some lawmakers demanding additional information about his travel and security spending. Mr. Pruitt has often flown on first-class flights, with the airfare alone to Morocco costing more than $16,000.

On Tuesday, two of his top aides, including his head of his security detail, resigned.

Mr. Pruitt has also faced questions about why he focused on the trip on promoting liquefied natural gas exports, an issue that is not part of the E.P.A.’s mission. Mr. Pruitt testified that the Moroccan ambassador invited him to the country to negotiate the environment portion of a free-trade agreement. He said the ambassador, Lalla Joumala, asked him to raise the issue of liquefied natural gas when he was in Morocco.

In April, Mr. Smotkin signed the lobbying contract with the embassy of Morocco to “craft an outreach program” that includes promoting Morocco as a film destination, with the start date of this contract backdated to January. His connection to Mr. Pruitt’s Morocco trip was first reported over the weekend in Le Desk, a Moroccan news outlet, and on Tuesday in The Washington Post.

During his time in Oklahoma, Mr. Pruitt and Mr. Smotkin developed a friendship as they repeatedly met up at resort destinations, including at an elite mountainside lodge in Park City, Utah, and the Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs for meetings of Republican attorneys general, attendance lists of the events show.

“He has a good relationship with Scott Pruitt,” said Walter Cohen, the former Pennsylvania attorney general, who has also worked as a lawyer for Comcast, and who was present at several of the social and campaign-fund-raising events. “Some of these meetings we would go out to have dinner with Scott and his wife and Rick and a couple of other people.”

Mr. Smotkin told Mr. Cohen, among others interviewed by The Times, that he had played a role in helping set up the Morocco trip. Mr. Smotkin has been visiting Morocco on behalf of Comcast for several years, working to help promote the northern African nation as a site for film productions for Comcast and its subsidiaries, NBCUniversal and other film companies.