NYT goes after Pruitt for ‘challenge coins’ he didn’t buy. Obama officials bought them, though

Tim Pearce, DCNF

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt considered redesigning his department’s “challenge coin” to enlarge it and replace the EPA logo, but the idea was scrapped.

CHARLOTTE, NC - SEPTEMBER 04: Illinois nominee for Congress Tammy Duckworth speaks during day one of the Democratic National Convention at Time Warner Cable Arena on September 4, 2012 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The DNC that will run through September 7, will nominate U.S. President Barack Obama as the Democratic presidential candidate. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) — Tammy Duckworth (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A former Veterans Affairs official under former President Barack Obama redesigned the VA’s medallions, spending nearly $2,000 to get coins with the official’s name on them.

Former EPA multimedia director Ronald Slotkin, a career official who retired this year, said Pruitt wanted to make the coin about himself rather than the agency.

“These coins represent the agency,” Slotkin told TheNYT. “But Pruitt wanted his coin to be bigger than everyone else’s and he wanted it in a way that represented him.”

Redesigning a department’s “challenge coins” is not a unprecedented, though President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke have been criticized for redesigning the medallions, which are handed out to visitors as souvenirs.

“Administrator Pruitt does not have a challenge coin, but while we’re on the subject, President Obama’s Assistant Secretary of Veterans Affairs Tammy Duckworth spent taxpayers’ dollars on challenge coins,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.

Duckworth spent $1,875 on commemorative coins with the VA logo on one side and her name emblazoned on the other, according to a Chicago Tribune review of expenditures.

Duckworth also spent nearly $100,000 on “media comm. training” and another $2,100 on “china with the VA logo.”

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