One Florida Congresswoman used an unorthodox method of persuasion to get the Treasury Department to investigate Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s recent trip to Cuba.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) called into the web-based TV show “TMZ Live” Tuesday demanding answers on the Carter family’s trip, as the department had yet to respond to a letter she and fellow south Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart penned on Friday.
“What kind of license was issued to Beyoncé and Jay-Z that would have allowed them to visit to Cuba?” she asked during Tuesday’s show. “It sure looks like a tourist trip to me.”
In their letter Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balert questioned why the Treasury Department would offer the Carters an exception to the U.S. Trade Embargo on Cuba just so they could celebrate their fifth anniversary in Havana.
“It tells you that the laws don’t apply to you if you’re rich enough and if you’re famous enough,” she said on TMZ Tuesday.
The Florida congresswoman said she hoped President Obama’s well-known friendship with Beyoncé and Jay-Z had nothing to do with the decision.”I hope he would not bend the laws that way,” she said.
“We respectfully requested to know the public document everyone should have access to,” she explained to TMZ.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) also chimed in on the stars’ excursion to Havana.
“According to recent news reports, Jay-Z and Beyoncé’s Cuba trip, which the regime seized on for propaganda purposes, was fully licensed by the Treasury Department,” Rubio said in a public statement on Monday. “If true, the Obama administration should explain exactly how trips like these comply with U.S. law and regulations governing travel to Cuba and it should disclose how many more of these trips they have licensed.”
While Reuters originally reported on Monday that the couple’s jaunt to Havana, Cuba was fully licensed by the Treasury Department, news broke Tuesday afternoon that the department will now launch an official investigation into the New York-based firm that set up the couple’s trip.
