Court Orders EPA Nominee Scott Pruitt to Release Emails

For Immediate Release: Thursday, February 16, 2017
Contact: press@prwatch.org

Scott Pruitt Found In Violation of Oklahoma Open Records Act; Court Orders Withheld Emails Released by February 21

OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla.—Today, the Oklahoma County Court found Trump EPA nominee Scott Pruitt in violation of the state’s Open Records Act. The Center for Media and Democracy filed a lawsuit against Pruitt for improperly withholding public records and the court ordered his office to release thousands of emails in a matter of days.

In her ruling, Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons slammed the Attorney General’s office for its “abject failure” to abide by the Oklahoma Open Records Act.

The judge gave Pruitt’s office until Tuesday, February 21, to turn over more than 2,500 emails it withheld from CMD’s January 2015 records request, and just 10 days to turn over an undetermined number of documents responsive to CMD’s 5 additional open records requests outstanding between November 2015 and August 2016.

Today’s expedited hearing was granted after CMD, represented by Robert Nelon of Hall Estill and the ACLU of Oklahoma, filed a lawsuit that has driven unprecedented attention to Pruitt’s failure to disclose his deep ties to fossil industry corporations. On Friday, Pruitt is expected to face a full Senate vote on his nomination to run the EPA.

On February 10, Pruitt’s office finally responded to the oldest of CMD’s nine outstanding Open Records Act requests but provided just 411 of the more than 3,000 emails they had located, withholding thousands of emails relevant to the request and still failing to respond to CMD’s eight other outstanding requests. On February 14 CMD filed a status report with the judge detailing the scope of missing documents, including 27 emails that were previously turned over to The New York Times in 2014.

“Scott Pruitt broke the law and went to great lengths to avoid the questions many Americans have about his true motivations,” said Nick Surgey, CMD’s director of research. “Despite Pruitt’s efforts to repeatedly obfuscate and withhold public documents, we’re all wiser to his ways and the interests he really serves. The work doesn’t stop here to make sure communities across the country have the information they need to hold him accountable to the health and safety of our families.”

Ahead of today’s hearing, Senators Carper, Whitehouse, Merkley, Booker, Markey and Duckworth – all members of the EPW committee – weighed in on the case, urging the Oklahoma court to require the Office of the Oklahoma Attorney General to release documents relevant to CMD’s open record requests as a matter of “federal importance.”  In a letter to the OK Court, the Senators stated:

"We are providing this information to the Court today because we have concluded [the] pending Open Records Act requests may be the only means by which the Senate and the general public can obtain in a timely manner critical information about Mr. Pruitt's ability to lead the EPA."

"We need to understand whether . . . Mr. Pruitt engaged with the industries that he will be responsible for regulating if he is confirmed as Administrator in ways that would compromise his ability to carry out his duties with the complete impartiality required."

Pruitt’s continued lack of transparency extends from a difficult nomination process in which research from CMD demonstrated Pruitt’s repeated pattern of obfuscating ties to deep-pocketed, corporate interests.

At his hearing before the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, Pruitt faced a series of questions about his private meetings with major fossil fuel companies while chair of the Republican Attorneys General Association and fundraising for the Rule of Law Defense Fund. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse concluded his questioning telling Pruitt his testimony “just doesn’t add up.” Despite failing to respond to any records requests for the past two years, Pruitt told U.S. Senators last week to file more open records requests with his office to answer 19 outstanding questions from his confirmation hearing.

After Democratic Senators twice boycotted the EPW Committee vote due to concerns over Pruitt’s conflicts of interests and failure to fulfill open records requests, Republicans resorted to suspending Committee rules to advance his nomination.

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