Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has resigned, President Donald Trump tweeted Thursday.
“I have accepted the resignation of Scott Pruitt as the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency,” Trump tweeted. “Within the Agency Scott has done an outstanding job, and I will always be thankful to him for this.”
Pruitt’s resignation follows months during which the EPA administrator has been embroiled in one ethics controversy after the next.
Trump said on Twitter that Pruitt’s recently-Senate confirmed deputy Andrew Wheeler will on Monday assume the duties of acting administrator of the EPA.
“I have no doubt that Andy will continue on with our great and lasting EPA agenda. We have made tremendous progress and the future of the EPA is very bright!” Trump tweeted
Eagle-eyed New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman once again caught former President Donald Trump dozing off during a hearing related to his hush-money trial in New York on Friday.
In an update posted to the New York Times' live blog of the proceedings, Haberman wrote that "Trump appears to have fallen asleep in court again," and then added that "it happened several times just now" as "his eyes were closed for extended periods and his head dropped down twice."
Haberman also had some observations about Trump's appearance as he entered court on Friday.
"His hair is uncharacteristically messy," she wrote. "Like the wind hit it on the way into court."
Multiple reporters this week have observed Trump nodding off during his criminal trial for allegedly falsifying business records related to his 2016 hush-money payments of adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump's sleeping through an event that could end with him becoming a convicted felon has led to widespread ridicule on the internet all week, as Twitter hashtags such as "#SleepyDon" and "#DonSnoreleone" have trended at various times.
Although Trump appears to be subdued inside the courtroom, his behavior is markedly different outside of it, where he has gone on extended tirades against Judge Juan Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, and even trial witnesses such as former "fixer" Michael Cohen and adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump's trial related to hush-money payments is far from the only legal trouble he faces, and many legal experts have called the other charges that have been leveled against him — including allegedly trying to defraud the United States with a scheme to illegally stay in power and allegedly obstructing government efforts to retrieve top-secret government documents from his Mar-a-Lago resort — as significantly more serious.
Reacting to an angry rant delivered by Donald Trump when he showed up for court on Friday morning, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig noted the former president looked "frazzled," which could be a clue to prosecutors that they are getting to him after only three days in court.
Speaking with host Kate Bolduan after the former president had already been admitted into the courtroom, where he will tried on 34 felony counts in the Stormy Daniels hush money trial, Honig noted that Trump seemed agitated as he addressed the press and listed off a series of grievances.
"Elie, from just watching how Donald Trump was in speaking to reporters before he went in, he was — he was definitely at least projecting that he was angry and frustrated, if he wasn't actually angry and frustrated," CNN's Bolduan prompted her colleague. "If you're a prosecutor and you're watching him act the way he did this morning, what do you think? Do you already think you are winning?"
"So he definitely looked frazzled," the legal analyst replied and then added, "I think that's a good word we can use for this."
"If he's frazzled now, just wait until week three because I think what Donald Trump is learning is that it is enormously stressful to be on trial," he continued. "I've never even had, of course, the experience of being the defendant, I've just done it as a lawyer."
"It's incredibly stressful," he elaborated. "It's long days, it's excruciating. It can be boring. We saw him nodding off during jury selection and it will get to him.
"And I think, if I'm the prosecutor — I'm not so into the head games in the psychology of it all — but I do think I would see someone who's perhaps fraying a bit at the edges and, who knows, that may lead to poor strategic decisions by Donald Trump or other behavior that could be self-destructive."
Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers will appear April 25 before the Supreme Court to argue Trump’s case for legal immunity from prosecution. Here’s a rundown of arguments from both sides.
