US environmental agency chief Scott Pruitt had aide do personal tasks, including hunt for a used Trump hotel mattress
The aide also scouted flats for her boss in some of Washington’s hippest neighbourhoods
In mid-September, the US Environmental Protection Agency’s director of scheduling and advance, Millan Hupp, reached out to the Trump International Hotel in Washington with an unusual request.
Hupp wanted to know how much the hotel would charge EPA chief Scott Pruitt for purchasing one of its used mattresses.
Hupp’s search for a discount “Trump Home Luxury Plush Euro Pillow Top” mattress, which she detailed in a recent interview with congressional investigators, was one of several unusual tasks she performed for the administrator.
The senior EPA official also scouted flats for her boss in some of Washington’s hippest neighbourhoods, and helped arrange his family trip to California over the New Year’s holiday so that the Pruitts could watch the Oklahoma Sooners college football team play in the Rose Bowl.
The push by Pruitt to enlist a subordinate in his quest for cheap bedding – outlined in a letter Monday from two of the top Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, to the panel’s chairman, Trey Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican – was one of several efforts he has made to minimise his personal expenses since moving to Washington.