Generally speaking, evidence up until now supporting E.P.A. administrator Scott Pruitt’s nomination for Most Corrupt Trump Administration Official has revolved around his use of his government position to score perks for himself and those close to him. Said perks have reportedly included: first-class flights; fancy hotel rooms; trips abroad with seemingly no official purpose; fancy pens; fancy pants; five-star dinners in Italy; Chick-fil-A franchises; sweetheart housing deals; five-figure phone booths; tickets to sporting events and face time with the team; and personal assistants in the form of E.P.A. staffers. But what about the stuff he’s potentially done for, say, executives and companies in the industries he’s supposed to be regulating? One way to determine the exact extent to which Pruitt is figuratively—and not just literally—in bed with the very peo ple he’s supposed to be protecting the environment from would be to compare his e-mails with the E.P.A.’s actions. But wouldn’t you know, it turns out Scotty-boy has only sent a single e-mail to anyone outside the agency in the 10 months of records we have access to!

Yes, that’s the amazing argument the E.P.A. is currently making after receiving a Freedom of Information Act request from the Sierra Club, which has been trying to obtain Pruitt’s external communications for more than a year, eventually filing a lawsuit in September to force the agency to respond. Politico reports that when pressed on the curious case of a Cabinet member supposedly only sending one message from his epa.gov addresses in his first 10 months on the job, the agency responded that Pruitt “mainly holds discussions in person or over the phone.” Shockingly, not everyone is buying that.

Oversight groups said it seems implausible that someone as active as Pruitt, who meets frequently with political and industry allies, would have sent only a single e-mail to someone outside E.P.A. Agency records also include evidence that Pruitt has used text messages at least once to set up a meeting with an Oklahoma lawyer.