Trump EPA boss Scott Pruitt – who was slammed for his first-class travel and taxpayer spending on a soundproof booth in his office – announced he is running for the SENATE in Oklahoma 

This article features Government Accountability Project’s whistleblower client, Kevin Chmielewski, and was originally published here.

Trump-era EPA administrator Scott Pruitt is now running for Senate in Oklahoma, to take over the seat vacated by retiring GOP Sen. Jim Inhofe.

Pruitt, 53, officially filed to run on Friday. He previously served as state senator and Oklahoma attorney general.

Pruitt stepped down from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2018 amid a wave of ethics scandals. He had faced heat for staying in a bargain $50-per-night condo in Capitol Hill owned by the wife of a prominent energy lobbyist when he was in Washington, D.C.

Pruitt now faces a crowded GOP primary to replace Inhofe, 87, which includes Rep. Markwayne Mullin, former Speaker of the Oklahoma House T.W. Shannon, Inhofe’s longtime Chief of Staff Luke Holland, state Sen. Nathan Dahm and Alex Gray, former chief of staff of the National Security Council under Trump.

That means two former Trump officials could be vying for the former president’s endorsement.

In another of a litany of scandals that swirled around Pruitt, aides say Pruitt asked them to help his wife find a job that would net her a salary that topped $200,000. He also had a $43,000 sound-proof phone booth installed in his EPA office, far above the $5,000 limit.

Democrats at the time revealed that Pruitt attempted to become attorney general before throwing in the towel at the EPA.

He also demanded 24-hour-a-day protection from armed officers, resulting in a swollen 20-member security detail that blew through overtime budgets and racked up expenses of more than $3 million. It was later found that he used that security detail to pick up his dry cleaning and help him shop for lotion at the pharmacy.

Pruitt was also investigated for his travel costs by the agency’s inspector general, including his frequent use of first class seats. The then-administrator ran up the taxpayer tab more than $163,000 by taking first-class flights, military aircraft and charter flights in his first year in office alone.

Pruitt was hired to roll back regulations en masse at the EPA in favor of drumming up coal, oil and natural gas production. In his haste to roll back Obama-era regulations, Pruitt bypassed rules that led to his efforts being struck down in court. Courts struck down at least six efforts to delay or roll back regulations on pesticides, lead paint and renewable-fuel requirements.

Pruitt resigned from the EPA in July 2018, but not without attributing his spot in the Trump administration to divine providence.

‘I believe you are serving as President today because of God’s providence. I believe that same providence brought me into your service,’ Pruitt wrote Trump in his resignation letter as he faced more than a dozen investigations.

And upon Pruitt’s leaving, Trump spoke highly of him. ‘Scott Pruitt did an outstanding job inside of the EPA. We’ve gotten rid of record breaking regulations and it’s been really good,’ the president stated. ‘You know, obviously the controversies with Scott, but within the agency we were extremely happy.’

Congressional Democrats were probing staff claims he ordered them to falsify his official schedules to shield meetings with industry bigs.

Pruitt’s former chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski – who came to EPA from the Trump campaign – told CNN Pruitt held meetings to ‘scrub, alter or remove from Pruitt’s official calendar numerous records because they might “look bad.”‘

He said close aides kept three different schedules – and one of them containing potentially revealing information was kept secret. He was already facing a dozen-plus scandals at the time.