Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt took his security detail on several unofficial trips, including to Disneyland and the Rose Bowl game, CNN reports.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., wrote in a letter Friday to the department's inspector general, claiming that Pruitt uses his security detail 24/7 and that "significant agency resources are being devoted to administrator Pruitt's 'round-the-clock security, even when he is traveling on non-official business."
He added: "While I consider matters of personal security to be extremely serious, personal security should never be used as a pretext to obtain special treatment."
Whitehouse claims to have six weekly schedules and other documents that prove Pruitt used somewhere between two and three dozen agents in six weeks.
The EPA told CNN: "Administrator Pruitt follows the same security protocol whether he's in his personal or official capacity."
Pruitt has come under fire for his travel expenses before. His first class plane tickets have cost almost $200,000 so far, and the security detail for a week-long trip to Italy last June cost over $30,000 alone. Whitehouse also alleges that "more than one source" claims that the administrator "frequently requested per diem lodging expenses in excess of the federal government's established daily rate."
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