Implying that this was an appropriate cost-cutting move during the partial federal government shutdown, President Trump denied Speaker Pelosi a military flight to Europe and the Middle East to meet with American troops in Afghanistan. Yet the supposed swamp drainer-in-chief had no trouble approving a military jet flight for his since departed and disgraced Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Scott Pruitt, to enable Mr. Pruitt to attend meetings in Europe, including what essentially was a tourist frolic to the Vatican (the latter, of course, having no clear relevance to the EPA’s environmental protection responsibilities).

EcoRights seeks answers to two still very relevant questions: will Pruitt’s former deputy, Andrew Wheeler, institute reforms to halt continued ethical abuses at EPA and will an administration that promised to “drain the swamp” require Mr. Pruitt to provide restitution to the taxpayers whom he appears to have bilked. In response to our FOIA requests, EPA provided a memo noting that President Trump himself directed the White House Military Office to provide Administrator Pruitt a military flight to enable Pruitt’s Europe trip—at a cost to taxpayers of $10,075 per hour.

The Trump EPA continues to seek to hide the full story of what really happened on this trip. EPA has only released a redacted memo hiding where Mr. Pruitt took off from and landed on the trip’s three legs, claiming that this was information both protected from disclosure by personal privacy rights and law enforcement confidentiality. Based on similar claims, the EPA also redacted the identities of the other travelers accompanying Mr. Pruitt on the flights.

And all of this is the tip of the iceberg. The documents obtained by EcoRights so far memorialize numerous additional expensive charter flights taken by Mr. Pruitt, including, for example, Mr. Pruitt’s trip to Morocco to meet with a Moroccan energy agency. EPA has redacted from its documents all indication of what Mr. Pruitt discussed with the Moroccan agency as “deliberative process,” i.e., as involving confidential advice related to an official EPA decision. EPA has failed to explain how a Moroccan agency could be confidentially advising Mr. Pruitt on U.S. environmental policy.

EcoRights has sent additional FOIA requests seeking to learn whether EPA and the Trump Administration have taken steps to ensure that Acting Administrator Wheeler or other high EPA officials do not run up public expense for unjustifiable travel. Similarly, our FOIA requests seek to learn whether EPA and the Trump Administration are securing reimbursement from Mr. Pruitt for his abuses of travel funds and other sorts of unjustifiable taxpayer expense. What we have encountered so far is not encouraging. EPA has indicated it plans to take years to fully respond to our requests (in plain violation of the law’s deadlines). EPA has instituted a new “political review” layer of review whereby it holds up responding to FOIA requests that it deems ask for sensitive information until the Administrator’s staff clears the material for release. This review process has almost certainly prompted EPA to slow walk its FOIA responses and has led EPA to blatantly disregard the law in redacting documents it does release.

EPA’s stonewalling has prompted us to seek relief in federal court in Oakland. As the Supreme Court wrote many years ago, Congress enacted FOIA to “ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.” We will pursue our FOIA rights in court to ensure that light is shone into the dark corners of Trump’s EPA.