“Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired,” reads a prepared statement from the EPA chief of staff. | Zach Gibson/AFP/Getty Images EPA chief of staff takes responsibility for raises given to Pruitt aides

EPA chief of staff Ryan Jackson is taking responsibility for controversial raises given to two of Administrator Scott Pruitt's top aides.

Pruitt has been under fire over a report in The Atlantic last week that he used special hiring authority to give hefty pay increases to two political appointees who joined EPA after working for him in Oklahoma. On Monday, the Atlantic cited two administration officials who said one of the employees had sent an email indicating that Pruitt had signed off on her new salary level.


In a response to the latest report, Jackson distanced Pruitt from the salary decision.

“Administrator Pruitt had zero knowledge of the amount of the raises, nor the process by which they transpired. These kind of personnel actions are handled by EPA's HR officials, Presidential Personnel Office and me,” Jackson said in a prepared statement Monday.

He said the staffers were to be paid “similar to their peers given their responsibilities over the past year,” and that their original salaries started lower than their colleagues’ because they had moved to Washington, D.C., from Oklahoma, where salaries are lower.

He added that the raises had been reversed, as Pruitt instructed, and any future changes would go through the White House for evaluation.

Democratic senators are asking an internal watchdog to investigate. The Atlantic reported that Pruitt himself went around the White House to ask for pay increases for two staffers who followed him from his attorney general post in Oklahoma — senior counsel Sarah Greenwalt and scheduling director Millan Hupp. The raises, of $56,765 and $28,130, respectively, were made with authority allowed under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which lets the administrator appoint up to 30 staffers without White House approval.

In an interview with Fox News last week, Pruitt claimed he had no knowledge of the raises and “the officials that were involved in that process should not have done what they did.”

The Atlantic also reported that one EPA official heard top political appointees — including Jackson, Greenwalt and Hupp — joking Friday that Pruitt was “bulletproof” and, like Trump, “could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone” and “get away with it.”

Jackson said he didn’t recall speaking with those staffers on Friday and said he wouldn’t stand by in a conversation where people made that kind of joke.

“It’s just flat-out false,” he said.

Alex Guillén contributed to this report.

