According to a CNN report, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested that the president appoint him to head the Justice Department under the Vacancies Reform Act. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images Pruitt denies he urged Trump to dump Sessions, install him at DOJ

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is denying a CNN report that he appealed directly to President Donald Trump this spring to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions and put him in charge of the Justice Department.

Pruitt, who is facing more than a dozen investigations into his ethics and spending, made the pitch during an Oval Office meeting with Trump, CNN reported, citing three people familiar with the matter.


“This report is simply false. General Sessions and I are friends and I have always said I want nothing more than to see him succeed in his role,” Pruitt said in a statement.

But Pruitt has repeatedly expressed interest in Sessions' job, people familiar with the discussions first told POLITICO in January, and continued rumblings about his intra-Cabinet ambitions have become one factor in the White House staff's growing irritation with the EPA chief. At the same time, Trump himself "enjoys discussing his negative view" of Sessions with Pruitt, The New York Times reported last month.

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Trump has long complained about Sessions for his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and he has stood by Pruitt, praising him for doing a "fantastic job" at EPA even as the scandals around the former Oklahoma attorney general have mounted.

According to the CNN report, Pruitt suggested that Trump appoint him to head the Justice Department for the 210 days he could serve as acting attorney general under the Vacancies Reform Act, and that he would then return to Oklahoma to run for office. White House advisers quickly shot down the proposal.

A White House spokesman said the recent reports about Pruitt were "troublesome," but stopped short of saying his job was in danger.

“We are aware of the numerous reports and the president is looking into those. But we don’t have any announcement to make,” the spokesman said.

Still, the chronic drip-drip-drip of damaging revelations about Pruitt is causing some of Trump's conservative supporters to renew their pleas for the president to fire him. They include conservative television and radio host Laura Ingraham, who said last month that Pruitt's "bad judgment" is "hurting the president" and he's "GOTTA GO."

"Pruitt is the swamp," Ingraham tweeted Tuesday night. "Drain it."

Emily Holden and Andrew Restuccia contributed to this report.

