Trump Shows Confidence in Pruitt Amid Ethics Questions

the former Oklahoma Attorney General. Scott has done a fantastic job. I think he's a fantastic person. Joining us is Jennifer de Lowe, a Bloomberg News energy policy reporter. Jennifer tell us about the latest Pruett ethics scandal involving a lease on a d C condo and the new information you reported on right, So we know that last year Administrator Pruitt rented for up to about six months rented a

bedroom in a condo near Capitol Hill. On Capitol Hill that from a healthcare lobbyist and her husband is also a lobbyist. He's an energy lobbyist with whose firm has clients regularly going before the e p A um And what we learned uh fairly recently was that he prew it basically paid fifty dollars a night to stay in this one bedroom unit. Uh. The the interesting part of this arrangement was that he only paid that some of

money on the nineties state there. Uh So on other nights when he wasn't in Washington, d C. He could leave a suitcase there, leave some belongings there on a limited basis, but he didn't actually have to pay. Now, your story this morning on the Bloomberg Terminal follows up on that that lobbyist didn't necessarily have business before the e p A last year, but he had a roster of clients who perhaps did. Can you connect those dots

force right? Absolutely? So, for instance, he has lobbied in the past for shin near Uh Energy, the first major exporter of liquefied natural gas from the United States, And while that is not necessarily or EPA doesn't directly regulate llengy Uh, Administrator Pruitt last year went on a trip to Morocco to tell the benefits of llengy Uh And

so that's that's an interesting connection. He's He's lobbied for a bottling company, for instance, that was facing a fine UH for violating air pollution requirements, permitting requirements related to air pollution and settled that case with the e p

A last year. So there's an array of these these you know, clients where they had some kind of dealings with the e p A. And maybe it was tangential, but but it's still points to the issues that are raised and the appearance of impropriety that that can be raised in this kind of a situation where you have this odd interaction with Pruitt UH basically renting from a

pair of lobbyists. Jennifer. The Wall Street Journal has just reported that White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told President Trump last week that he's convinced that e pH Chief Pruitt needs to step down, and we know that just this morning, Trump tweeted that and showing that he still has confidence in Pruitt. What are the pressures on Trump besides Kelly to replace Pruitt? When who's pushing the

Trump economic agenda hard I'm sorry, environmental agenda hard? Right, So he is I would say the President is under tremendous pressure, and it's coming in and from from all sides with regard to Pruett. So he even in his own, uh you know, stable of advisors, he's hearing divergent opinions from from folks that are very critical of Prueit's handling of these matters and are just seeing the daily headlines

as incredibly damaging. But he's also hearing from conservatives inside and outside the White House who are saying, this is our guy, and he's doing more to advance your agenda at the e p A than almost anybody else in your the cabinet. You can't afford to let him go. And frankly, you're not going to be able to get

anyone like him confirmed in the Senate. And when you say anyone like him, I'm so glad you said that, because it's not just that he's a deregulator guy, but he's got contacts, He knows people, he knows people CEOs who are in those businesses that would do work with or be affected by the e p A. Clarify that for us, Well, he comes to the e p A from Oklahoma, which obviously is a big oil and gas producer.

There's a number of energy companies based there. He has a long history with those companies and and really brushes with the industry. So so he comes to the e p A with kind of a knowledge of businesses that are regulated by the e p A. Obviously, he comes to the e p A also having sued it more than a dozen times about that. Right, So, so this is this is someone who is very much of the belief that e p A regulations should be more limited, that states should take primacy and regulating a lot of

environmental matters. And uh and and he has the chops to do it legally. I mean in terms of you know, he's got the expertise and he's got this background, so that that's something that conservatives are saying to Trump, you can't afford to get rid of this expertise, and you're not you really aren't going to get someone as passionate

about this in the job. But Jennifer, haven't most of Pruitt's initiatives or new law, new regulations been stopped in the courts, at least for the present, Right, it is absolutely early days in the efforts by Pruitt to rewrite a lot of these regulations. So, for instance, you know, he's in the earliest part of of of replacing the Clean Power Plan that the signature Obama rule to ratchet

down greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. So he's proposed to rule that roll that back, but there's litigation underway that may put that in jeopardy. He's tried to roll back some some rules on methane pollution and that's being ounge in the court. So so certainly, uh, you know, it's not clear how all of this will end up. But it also is true that this regulatory effort takes time and it is still very early in the process.

Let's take a step back looking at the different scandals, controversies, ethics issues versus the connections and the inability to perhaps get somebody confirmed who would be like him. What are the scales telling you? How does this way right now? Is this uh just you have to look in some

tea leaves here. Yeah, it's I will say that every hour it feels like the temperature changes on this a little bit and it is hard to read doesn't like the scandal, like he's not down with that absolutely, But you know, you look at these tweets, so it's very interesting as you look at the tweets and even much of the phrasing yesterday, it is very focused on Prue It's job performance. And I think that there's a distinction between praising how the job he's doing versus praising the

man himself. And I think that reflects some of the concerns in the White House that go all the way up to the President. And I think what we're gonna see over the next few days, the question is what weighs more strongly on the president. Is it his allergy to the scandal, or is it his concern that he really wants a conservative fighter in his administration and he's

not willing to let this guy go Jennifer. Another thing is that the e p a's top ethics officer said last week that the arrangement, the condo arrangement, didn't violate federal gift bands for government employees. But his analysis was very narrow, was only based on one thing, and he

didn't do a complete analysis. So that made that maybe see a change there, right, So that really just yesterday this ethics officer or two days ago, actually this ethics officer penned another memo saying, look, I only looked at whether this was fair market value. I didn't consider whether this rental was used as it was supposed to be in the least, and I just certainly didn't consider whether there was any violation of the ethics rules around impartiality.

So what he's sang there is there's a whole bunch of areas unexplored really by his initial analysis that could could prove damaging. To prove it as we dig further into this, as folks look more closely at his interactions over the last year and a half. All right, well, we will have to wait and see. Trump has said many times before supported his appointees and then later on tweeted they were fired. Thanks so much, Jennifer. That's Jennifer

de Loewe, Bloomberg News energy policy reporter. In the Senate confirmed twelve nominees for circuit court appointments and achievement. President Trump noted earlier this year in a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, We've confirmed a record number so important of circuit court judges, and we are going to

be putting in a lot more joining us. As Bloomberg Law reporter Patrick Gregory Patrick, President Donald Trump may get a chance to flip three federal appeals courts that currently have a majority of Democratic appointed judges to a majority of Republican appointees tell us about that right. And the reason that's important is because these federal courts of appeals,

they are the highest court besides the Supreme Courts. So from issues ranging from abortions to gons, you name it, these are the highest courts at any given dispute is likely to get to. Three in particular, are close to flipping. You have the Second Circuit, which is where New York is, the third Circuit where Pennsylvania's, and the eleventh Circuit where Florida is. They're all in sort of striking range of having more Republican appointees than Democrat appointees. Patrick are these

particular courts known for being up particularly political? I don't know if i'd say we're known for being particularly political, but when you add more, when our president adds uh judges that he's chosen, it definitely has an effect. Um In the ninth Circuit, which is one I didn't name because it's not going to flip um, but there's seven vacancies, so you could go from six Republican appointees to thirteen.

That's not going to flip. But the appointees there could definitely moderate the decisions of the majority, and they can write more dissents that will draw attention the cases that the Supreme Court might want to review. So, Patrick Trump set a record for a president his first year confirming twelve Circuit Court nominees, are having them confirmed, but only to this year. Why isn't he moving at a faster pace. That's a good question because you have mid terms looming.

There's a long shot chance of Republicans losing the Senate, and they need Senate control to confirm nominees, especially after what happened with Merrick Garland. You assume that the Democrats, you know, might take a chance to give them some payback if if they take control of the Senate um. But you know, look at Tennessee, where the Democratic candidate is polling ten points ahead in a state that Trump

carried by twenty six points. You would think that there would be some more urgency there from Trump and the Republicans in the Senate. One of the hurdles is that Democrats are requiring thirty hours of debate for each nominee, and so to confirm all the ten pending appellent nominees. UM added with the forty pending district court nominees, it would take more than sixty eight days, and that's going on the Senate for seven So you have a big time a hurdle there. But at the same time, the

Senate Republicans could try to change that rule. There has been a proposal to limit um the debate required for distreccord nominees for just two hours, make it easier maybe for the appellent nominees to get through, wouldn't be such a time burden. I think part of it is just uh Center Republicans have different priorities right now, a lot of other issues going on. They might feel like they've gotten as much mileage with the voters for now that they need as far as UM as. Trump touted the

record setting number of confirmations he got in. That's interesting because that is something that the President has touted many times when he goes on speaking engagements. The fact that he's uh put in so many more judges at the circuit level. Do do you foresee the President putting more pressure on the Senate to confirm some of these federal appeals court vacancies. You know, given the attention that these you know, next to highest courts in the land get.

I think it depends on how much the base really push us for it, and whether the base is more focused on other issues. I really think getting Gorsets confirmed it took push Trump a long way. Um with his base. There's kind of a funny thing, you know, but Gorsets um. You know, we don't like Trump's decisions on terroriffs and whatnot,

but we got Gorsets out of it. I think there will be some more pressure as they go down the road, but Trump and their center Republicans might just think, hey, we're probably gonna win, or maybe they they're just completely confident they are going to win in the midterms and then they can just get to this later. Explain how Trump's ability to flip the circuits depends partially on how many judges are going to take seniors status, which is

up to the judges themselves. Right. So, senior status is a form of semi retirement where a federal judge um once he reaches age sixty five and reaches certain requirements about how long he's been on the bench, they can enter a form of summing retirement where they can still sit on cases, but their seat um is considered vacant. They go from active status to senior status, and then the president gets to appoint someone else for the active status seat. And about half of federal judges are now

eligible for senior status. So the bench is is pretty old in that sense. But I've talked to experts that say, there's really not much you can do to convince a judge to go ahead and take senior status. For example, if Trump wanted more Republican judges judges to take senior status, he could encourage them to do that, and some people have written that he should, But my sense is that these judges they tend to linger, and they retire when

they want to retire. Patrick does the president to have any appointees on his short list for some of these vacancies that could be opening up in the appeals courts? Um? Shortlist for what? For vacancies? Yeah? For the vacancies, yeah, yeah. He has UM A number of nominations pending. Yeah, there there are ten nominations pending. UM. And as far as short lists, um, you know, this is definitely a traditional path um going from a Court of Appeals to the

Supreme Court. If a vacancy opens up there. Um, we saw that with Animal SuPAR with Federal Court nominee. He was um confirmed, and before he was even confirmed, he was on President Trump's shortlist of potential Supreme Court nominees. Um, so that is definitely something we could see. Patrick, we have about a minute here less actually, but um explain how some of the some of the nominees have actually had some Democratic support. They've been moderate enough, right, And

that's the other question here. This metric of whether you have more Republican appointees versus Democratic appointees if kind of murky, and it's it's far from perfect, but it's sort of the best best we've got. And the question is how ideological are those nominees going to be. That's obviously part of the effect that they're going to have. And we've seen some nominees who have not appeared to be ideological.

We've seen even nominees to the Ninth Circuit, which is seen as Patrick, I'm going to have to stop you there. We'll pick up with this in the future. That's Bloomberg Law reporter Patrick Gregory. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law podcast. You can subscribe and Listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brolso, this is Bloomberg