Former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s infamous phone booth, which spawned countless issues of both a PR and legal nature for him, turns out to be even more unnecessary a purchase than it seemed, as he used the $43,000 creation to place exactly one call to the White House during his entire tenure.
According to a Monday Washington Post report, that sole call spanned five minutes. A subpoena of Verizon is reportedly required to get a full log of all calls made to and from the phone booth.
Pruitt had previously said that he needed the booth so he could have a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, or SCIF, neglecting to mention that the EPA already has a SCIF in its headquarters.
Per the Post, the GAO already concluded that Pruitt broke federal spending laws by using over $5,000 without first providing congressional notice.
He has also told Congress that he did not realize the size of the price tag, and that he would not have given the project his thumbs up if he had known.
Acting administrator Andrew Wheeler has reportedly said that he will not take down the booth, since it would be “expensive to tear it apart.”
