Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt is reportedly interested in taking on the attorney general role.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt is reportedly interested in taking on the attorney general role.
According to Politico's inside sources, he's shared that interest "on a number of occasions" with his friends and associates.
Pruitt has been criticized in the past for his seemingly vague position on climate change but "Trump has grown to like him" and he has "developed a reputation in Washington as one of the most ambitious members of Trump's Cabinet," reports Politico.
As the Washington Post notes that "aggressiveness on issues from coal waste to vehicle emissions" has made him "one of Trump's most high-profile and consequential Cabinet members."
While he reportedly "harbors bigger aspirations," the EPA pushed back on Politico's report with agency spokesperson Jahan Wilcox saying "no, this is not true."
The speculation about the next attorney general has spurred amid the criticism faced by the current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
In a Washington Examiner op-ed Thursday, Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) called on Sessions to resign.
As Vox explains, lawmakers assert that "by recusing himself from the FBI's investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the United States election, Sessions has lost 'control,' allowing for a leaky and unnecessarily overdrawn, partisan investigation."
Sessions has also had a rocky relationship with President Trump.
Back in July, Trump told the New York Times with regards to the Russia investigation, "Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and I would have picked somebody else."
