Pruitt's $43,000 Soundproof Phone Booth Started More Modestly

  • Agency staff authorized most expensive rush job option
  • Higher budgets approved as scale of project mushroomed

White House To Investigate Pruitt's Spending

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In the beginning, it was supposed to be just a secure telephone line.

But over the course of four months last year, that phone line destined for the office of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt morphed from a no-more-than $13,500 project into a $43,000 privacy booth, complete with silenced ventilation and "noise-lock" paneling to keep conversations from being overheard, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg News.