A whistleblower from the Environmental Protection Agency says that Administrator Scott Pruitt was “bald-faced lying” when he told members of Congress that no EPA employees were retaliated against for raising concerns about his spending decisions, ABC News reports.

Former deputy chief of staff Kevin Chmielewski said he was “100 percent” forced out after raising concerns about Pruitt’s spending on first-class travel.

Politico: “Scott Pruitt may have survived his testimony on Capitol Hill, but he’s coming back to a further enraged and demoralized EPA staff. Several current and former EPA officials and other people close to the agency said Pruitt did himself no favors with his congressional testimony Thursday, in which he blamed his aides for installing a $43,000 privacy booth in his office and approving more than $100,000 in first-class flights that he took last year.”

“Pruitt also denied knowing key details about raises that his top staff received last year. … In conversations with 11 people who know the atmosphere inside EPA, including Republican political appointees, a handful said his refusal to grovel may have pleased President Trump. But others said his strategy was appalling to the current and former staffers who found themselves thrown under the bus.”

“As Scott Pruitt, the embattled head of the Environmental Protection Agency, prepares to testify before Congress on Thursday amid a series of spending and ethics investigations, an internal E.P.A. document indicates that he may blame his staff for many of the decisions that have put a cloud over his tenure at the agency,” the New York Times reports.

“The document, which The New York Times has reviewed and the veracity of which the E.P.A. did not dispute, seemed to be a work in progress.”

“His testimony coincides with rising calls from both Democrats and Republicans for Mr. Pruitt to step aside. He has been criticized for spending more than $3 million on security in his first year in office, a figure that includes salary and overtime for his security detail of more than 20 people, some of whom have been dispatched to protect Mr. Pruitt on private trips to Disneyland, professional basketball games and the 2018 Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.”

EPA chief Scott Pruitt “faces a make-or-break moment on Thursday, when he’s slated for a pair of congressional hearings, but he’ll be heading to the Hill without the full backing of the Trump White House,” the Daily Beast reports.

“Two sources familiar with Pruitt’s preparation for the hearing say that the EPA has turned down an offer from the White House to help prepare the administrator for what is sure to be a bruising few hours of questions about the ethics and government spending controversies that have dogged him of late.”

A White House official characterized the EPA’s response as “get lost.”

The New York Times looks at EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s lifestyle back home and concludes his “political career in Oklahoma reveals that many of the pitfalls he has encountered in Washington have echoes in his past.”

“Lobbyists and others in Oklahoma state politics who encountered Mr. Pruitt recalled him as a tough competitor who always had his eye on a higher office. Some called him a ‘Boy Scout’ who was stingy with his money, while others said privately that he had exuded a sense of entitlement — that rules did not apply to him.”

Poltico: “The prominent lobbyist whose wife rented a condominium to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt lobbied the agency while Pruitt was leading it, contrary to his and Pruitt’s public denials that he had any business before the agency, according to a Friday filing by his firm.”

“The disclosure from the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen contradicts Pruitt’s public statement last month that the lobbyist, J. Steven Hart, had no clients with business before the EPA, and comes hours after Hart’s resignation from the firm.”

ABC News: “The 47-hour journey in Morocco was already drawing congressional scrutiny and criticism from outside groups because of the lack transparency over why Pruitt was in the country and what he was doing while he was there.”

“Conservative congressional estimates put the cost of the trip at more than $40,000, and because of travel snags, Pruitt and his aides spent two days in Paris at high-end hotels. Pruitt did not publicly announce he was going ahead of time, did not bring reporters along, and when he finally released copies of his itinerary in response to Freedom of Information requests from ABC News and other news organizations, the bulk of the schedule was blacked out.”

EPA administrator Scott Pruitt installed a $43,000 soundproof phone booth at agency headquarters last fall, which “violated the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, which prohibits an agency from paying more than $5,000 to redecorate or furnish a presidential appointee’s office without approval,” the Washington Post reports.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “has used four separate agency email addresses since taking office, according to Senate Democrats and an EPA official, prompting concerns among agency lawyers that the EPA has not disclosed all the documents it would normally release to the public under federal records requests,” the Washington Post reports.

“Pruitt’s four email addresses include one in the conventional agency format, [email protected], as well as three others: [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected], an apparent reference to the University of Oklahoma, whose football team Pruitt follows closely.”

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “insisted on staying in luxury hotels that were costlier than allowed by government standards, while also pushing to fly on an airline not on the government’s approved list so he could accrue more frequent flier miles, one of his top former deputies at agency has told congressional investigators,” the New York Times reports.

“The new allegations are detailed in a scathing six-page letter signed by two senators and three House lawmakers — all Democrats — whose staff members met this week with Kevin Chmielewski, who served as the E.P.A.’s deputy chief of staff until he was removed from his post after raising objections to this and other spending.”

An internal email that suggests EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt “personally signed off on a controversial pay raise for a favored aide last month is roiling the agency,” The Atlantic reports.

Last week, Pruitt was pressed in an interview by Fox News’s Ed Henry but denied any knowledge of the episode: “I didn’t know they got the pay raises until yesterday.”

Said one administration official: “My jaw dropped when he said that.”