On Monday, a woman publicly confronted Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt while he was eating lunch and urged him to resign, according to a video she posted on Facebook.
“EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something,” Kristin Mink wrote on Facebook.
“This man is directly and significantly harming my child’s — and every child’s — health and future with decisions to roll back environmental regulations for the benefit of big corporations, while he uses taxpayer money to fund a lavish lifestyle,” she claimed. “He’s corrupt, he’s a liar, he’s a climate change denier, and as a public servant, should not be able to go out in public without hearing from the citizens he’s hurting.”
According to The Hill:
Minka, who is a schoolteacher according to her Facebook profile, lists off multiple scandals Pruitt has been ensnared in since becoming EPA chief, including the rental of a Capitol Hill condo owned by the wife of an influential lobbyist.
“We deserve to have somebody at the EPA who actually does protect our environment, someone who believes in climate change and takes it seriously for the benefit of all us, including our children,” Minka said.
“I would urge you to resign before your scandals push you out.”
Minka’s encounter with Pruitt, which had about 2,500 views just more than hour after being posted, is the latest public confrontation a Trump Cabinet official has faced in recent weeks.
The video, which can be seen below, has now been viewed over 166,000 times.
Mink claimed in the video that Pruitt and his security detail “fled” the restaurant before she got back to her seat, but the video ended before that took place, so there is no way to know what was actually said or done after the encounter.
Many of the comments on her Facebook post were positive, but one person noted:
I can’t stand these horribly conclusory remarks by this woman, she has no clue what she’s talking about based off her non-specific accusatory questions. She had to read off of a text message someone sent her. Very poorly executed.
Notice how it’s selectively edited to censor whatever he said? Show the entire video!
Indeed, Mink does appear to be referring to notes as she spoke to Pruitt, as you can see in the video.
Pruitt, by the way, has come under intense fire from the left and has been the target of death threats, which were justified by San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford. According to the Washington Free Beacon Morford wrote:
“Scott Pruitt, the pallid, oily anti-environment corporate shill beloved by the least palatable humans in the corporate world, is getting a lot of death threats, up to five times more than any EPA head in history,” writes Morford, who goes on to suggest that the death threats may be coming from “God herself.”
“They are, perhaps, coming from environmental advocates, or teachers, or lovers of life and humanity and nature, or distraught mothers, worried that Pruitt’s actions will, quite correctly, endanger the lives of their children,” Morford writes. “They are, most likely, coming from God herself.”
Morford in the piece accuses Pruitt of creating a sound proof office space so he could “block out the screams of all the children, poor, and elderly he is harming and even (eventually) killing, more or less directly, as he whispers dreamy deregulation porn into the withered, cauliflower ears of coal barons, oil magnates and leathery brothers Koch.”
As we noted here at the time, the article, which compared Pruitt and President Trump to “the devil himself,” was heavily edited.
EPA head Scott Pruitt was 3 tables away as I ate lunch with my child. I had to say something. This man is directly and significantly harming my child’s — and every child’s — health and future with decisions to roll back environmental regulations for the benefit of big corporations, while he uses taxpayer money to fund a lavish lifestyle. He’s corrupt, he’s a liar, he’s a climate change denier, and as a public servant, he should not be able to go out in public without hearing from the citizens he’s hurting. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency U.S. EPA Administrator Scott PruittETA: You don’t have to wait til your next Pruitt sighting to take action! Click here to help Boot Pruitt! https://www.addup.org/campaigns/boot-pruitt
Posted by Kristin Mink on Monday, July 2, 2018
Cross-Posted With Conservative Firing Line