The Story:
The administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Scott Pruitt, has leased a Washington D.C. condo, at a rate lower than market, owned by a lobbyist working for the healthcare industry: her husband is also a lobbyist, and he works for industries directly regulated by the EPA.
The Arrangement:
An old adage says there are three factors in pricing real estate: location, location, and location. The building complex where Pruitt has leased this condo is in a pricey locale: less than a block away from the Capitol Dome. Other units in the building have been let out for as much as $5000 per month. Pruitt gets the space for $50 a night.
The Thing to Know:
Pruitt’s boss, President Donald Trump, has gotten much mileage out of a promise to “drain the swamp,” where the metaphor of a “swamp” refers to the sort of cozy relationships between those being lobbied and those doing the lobbying that this arrangement would seem to epitomize.
