There are cronies and then there are crooks

But never fear, they’re all employable in the Trump Administration.

EPA Director Scott Pruitt (spit!) has hired a buddy of his who once made him three mortgage loans: one for $81,000, another for $359,000, and a third for $533,000. The loans were used to buy a house in a tony section of Tulsa despite Pruitt’s salary income of $38,400 per year, which seems a bit low to repay a $605,000 mortgage.

Even better (or worse), the guy is hired to run the nationwide Superfund program, which might not seem unusual except that he (his name is Albert Kelly) was banned from banking for life.

In May, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation fined Oklahoma banker Albert Kelly $125,000. According to a consent order, which The Intercept obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, the FDIC had “reason to believe that [Kelly] violated a law or regulation, by entering into an agreement pertaining to a loan by the Bank without FDIC approval.”

Two weeks later, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt appointed Kelly to lead an effort to streamline the Superfund program. In July, the FDIC went further, banning Kelly from banking for life. The “order of prohibition from further participation” explained that the FDIC had determined Kelly’s “unfitness to serve as a director, officer, person participating in the conduct of the affairs or as an institution-affiliated party of the Bank, any other insured depository institution.”

He was summarily dismissed back in August, by which time he’d been hired on by Pruitt at EPA. The FDIC said in banning him ‘…the bank suffered financial losses or other damages and the violations involved Kelly’s “willful or continuing disregard for the safety or soundness of the bank.”‘

Not a guy I’d pick to run something called Superfund.