Sometimes, the Chicken-Fried News staff desperately tries to keep Environmental “Protection” Agency administrator Scott Pruitt out of its pages. After all, we want to be fair to everyone from this fair state that manages to reset Oklahoma’s “number of days without a national embarrassment” counter.
But Pruitt is, as U.S. Sen. John “Not That One” Kennedy, R-Louisiana, told CNN’s John Berman on June 7, “acting like a moron and he needs to stop it.”
Now, without a corkboard covered with news clippings connected with red string to various photos of Cole Haans landing in fresh dog feces, most news consumers would have difficulty determining which story Kennedy found most egregious and moronic.
It was, of course, the Chick-fil-A incident.
No, Pruitt didn’t spend $400 in one month gorging on Chick-fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwiches. Actually, he racked up those monthly expenses at the White House mess hall, where, according to Politico, he dined on so many beer-braised brisket tacos and some glop called “Chocolate Freedom” that the White House had to put the kibosh on Pruitt’s din-din time at the mess.
What he allegedly did do was attempt to use the power of his office to get his wife, Marlyn, a Chick-fil-A franchise in Tulsa.
According to a June 5 report from The Washington Post, Pruitt had his executive scheduler, Oklahoma’s Own™ Sydney Hupp, contact Chik-fil-A president and chairman Dan Cathy in May 2017 about what was described as a “potential business opportunity.” As the Post helpfully points out, “Federal ethics laws bar public officials from using their position or staff for private gain.”
A call between Pruitt and Cathy was planned but later canceled. Pruitt did follow up with a member of the Chick-fil-A legal team, during which he pitched this exciting opportunity for his wife to oversee a franchise that will not serve you chicken on Sunday because of Jesus.
According to the Post, Marlyn Pruitt did not follow through on her application to sell admittedly delicious chicken to a dedicated constituency that will pack a drive-thru lane on Mike Huckabee’s command. It’s a shame for her, because the odds of getting a Chick-fil-A franchise are on par with winning the lottery while being struck by lightning.
In a separate June 7 story, the Post reported that of 40,000 franchise applicants each year, only 100 to 115 make it through to open a new Chick-fil-A. In comparison, about 20 times more people get into Harvard University each year, which receives roughly the same number of applicants.
Pruitt just allegedly wanted a little affirmative chicken action for his wife, that’s all, and to make Tulsa smell that much more like fried food.
“Chick-fil-A is a franchise of faith, and it’s one of the best in the country, and so that’s something we were very excited about, so … and we need more of them in Tulsa and we need more of them across the country,” Pruitt told reporter Jessica Smith of Nexstar Media Group.
Of course, a hankering for a hunk of Chick-fil-A was not the sum total of Pruitt’s problems. He also wanted a used mattress from the Trump International Hotel. No, not that mattress. For your information, conspiracy theorist, that one’s in Moscow.
According to a June 4 letter from Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, and Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Virginia, to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Trey Gowdy, R-South Carolina, Pruitt aide Millan Hupp (Sydney Hupp’s sister) told the committee that Pruitt asked her to get an old mattress from the International House of Emoluments.
“As I remember, the administrator had spoken with someone at the Trump Hotel who had indicated that there could be a mattress that he could purchase, an old mattress that he could purchase, but that’s the extent of the conversation that I can — that I can remember,” Hupp said in a transcript of the meeting.
On June 6, Elaina Plott of The Atlantic reported that Millan Hupp resigned her position at E“P”A, having tired of fetching used Sertas and, according to an unnamed official quoted in the story, “being thrown under the bus by Pruitt.”
Plott asked E“P”A spokesman Jahan Wilcox for comment on the story. Wilcox, in a display of the courtliness and impeccable etiquette that has taken Washington, D.C., by storm, said to Plott, “You have a great day, you’re a piece of trash.”
This proves the E“P”A doesn’t even know what trash is anymore.
Editor’s note: Chicken-Fried News is not affiliated in any way with Chick-fil-A. In addition, it should be noted that the original name for Chick-fil-A was Dwarf House and several locations in the Atlanta area still operate under the name Chick-fil-A Dwarf House, which CFN thinks is inappropriate.
