Washington: Scott Pruitt, the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has appealed to United States President Donald Trump to fire the incumbent Attorney General, Jeff Sessions so that he could run for the position.
According to CNN, Pruitt asked Trump to temporarily replace Sessions as the head of the Department of Justice for 210 days under the Vacancies Reform Act, saying that he would run for the office thereafter.
According to The Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998, the President has the authority to temporarily fill a vacancy at a federal agency if the official “dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office.”
Pruitt, in a statement, denied the reports.
“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,” the statement said.
An EPA spokesperson said that the agency “will not be commenting on anonymous sources who are working to distract Americans from the Trump Administration’s accomplishments on regulatory certainty and environmental stewardship.”
Earlier in April, Trump had publicly hinted towards replacing Sessions with Pruitt as the former’s recusal from overseeing the Russian investigation had added to the President’s frustrations.
Pruitt’s ethics have been a matter of debate and the at least14 federal investigations that he is facing has tarnished the administration.
It was also revealed on Monday that Pruitt and his aides kept ‘secret’ calendars and schedules and would discuss which meetings to exclude from their publicly released calendars, according to a former EPA official.
Despite all these allegations, Trump’s faith in Pruitt remains steadfast, and in June, he stated that Pruitt was doing a “fantastic job.”
“I’m not happy about certain things. But he’s done a fantastic job running the EPA, which is very overriding,” Trump said. (ANI)