A state court ordered Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt to turn over more than 2,500 emails his office withheld from open records requests relating to communications with coal, oil, and gas corporations. The order came a day before the Senate is poised to confirm him as President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The Senate is set to vote on Pruitt’s confirmation at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, February 27. It is unclear if the order by Oklahoma District Court Judge Aletia Haynes Timmons late on Thursday afternoon will delay the vote.

Judge Timmons gave Pruitt’s office until Tuesday, February 21 to turn over the emails it withheld from the Center for Media and Democracy’s (CMD’s) January 2015 records request. The judge also gave Pruitt’s office just 10 days to turn over an undetermined number of documents that relate to five additional open records requests filed between November 2015 and August 2016.

According to the CMD, on February 10, Pruitt’s office “finally responded” to the oldest of the watchdog organization’s nine outstanding Open Records Act requests, but it provided just 411 of the more than 3,000 emails they had located.…

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