must give a full public accounting of this expenditure and explain why the agency thinks it was complying with the law.”Liz Bowman, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said in a statement, “E.P.A. Rather, it provided more than 80 pages of “requests for personnel action” showing that Mr. Jackson, often with the signed authorization of Mr. Pruitt, handled most of the paperwork associated with the employees. Advertisement Continue reading the main storyIn an interview on April 4 with Fox News, Mr. Pruitt denied responsibility for the raises. Critics, however, said it was unusual to use the authority to hire deputy assistant administrators as Mr. Pruitt has. Nonetheless, Mr. Zinke “generally followed relevant law, policy, rules and regulations” when he chartered the flight, auditors said.

Source: New York Times April 16, 2018 16:46 UTC