Laura Ingraham's pre-Fourth of July plea for Donald Trump to fire his embattled head of the Environmental Protection Agency was likely the first clue that the anti-regulation darling of the right, Scott Pruitt, might be in trouble.
"Pruitt is the swamp. Drain it," she tweeted on Tuesday. While the Fox News host's disapproval of Pruitt is nothing new, there is no indication that her continued campaign against the beleaguered Cabinet secretary played any less of an influential role in the president's decision than the more than one dozen ethics investigations into Pruitt.
"Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this," the president tweeted on Thursday.
In his resignation letter, Pruitt blamed "unrelenting attacks" — not the 18 ethics investigations into his behavior while in office — for his resignation, the New York Times reported.
Trump also announced that Deputy EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler, a former coal lobbyist, would assume the role of acting administrator on Monday. Pruitt, a staunch opponent of the agency he was tasked with overseeing, lasted for only a little over 16 months in office.
In response to the news of Pruitt's resignation, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Executive Director Noah Bookbinder issued a one-word response: "Good."
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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