‘Pruitt Didn’t Follow State Law on Reporting Outside Attorney Costs’

• Joe Wertz
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  Joe Wertz was a reporter and managing editor for StateImpact Oklahoma from 2011-2019. He reported on energy and environment issues for national NPR audiences and other national outlets. He previously worked as a managing editor, assistant editor and staff reporter at several major Oklahoma newspapers and studied journalism at the University of Central Oklahoma.

Attorney General Scott Pruitt, who is about to face Senate hearings to confirm his nomination as administrator of the EPA, has failed to follow a state law requiring his agency to report spending on outside attorneys, The Frontier’s Ziva Branstetter reports.

Pruitt didn’t follow state law on reporting outside attorney costs

The Frontier first asked his office for records last month showing how much it spent each year on outside legal contracts. Though the office posted the reports to the attorney general’s website late Tuesday, they do not include Pruitt’s office in the list of reports.

In an email Wednesday evening, AG spokesman Lincoln Ferguson said “the Attorney General’ Office is in no way violating the law.”

When asked why the agency failed to disclose any spending on outside attorneys as required by law, Ferguson stated in an email that the process had changed.

“As a part of the effort to increase accountability in how agencies hire outside attorneys, there was a change in the 20i process from merely a reporting mechanism by state agencies to one that required agencies to seek approval” for hiring attorneys.