REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt lived in a Capitol Hill condo last year that is co-owned by the wife of a top energy lobbyist, according to an ABC News report. Vicki Hart, the property’s co-owner, and her husband, energy lobbyist J. Steven Hart, have been called a “lobbyist power couple.” J. Steven Hart wouldn’t tell ABC News how much Pruitt paid to live on the property, but said he believed it to be “market rate.” The price paid by Pruitt is essential in determining whether or not Pruitt received an “improper gift,” according to ethics experts. “I think it certainly creates a perception problem, especially if Mr. Hart is seeking to influence the agency,” Bryson Morgan, the former investigative counsel at the U.S. House of Representatives Office of Congressional Ethics, told ABC News. “That’s why there is a gift rule.”