A series of scandals surrounding lavish purchases and expensive travel by members of the president’s Cabinet has threatened to overshadow the Trump administration’s accomplishments.
President Trump kicked off Easter weekend by firing Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, an Obama holdover who was thrust into the center of controversy at the beginning of March over a lengthy report about his use of taxpayer dollars for a 10-day European vacation last summer. The VA’s internal watchdog concluded that Shulkin had “improperly” accepted tickets to the ladies’ finals at Wimbledon, oversaw the misuse of agency resources, and directed his staff to issue “misleading statements to the media” about his overseas excursion.
One particularly damning sentence from the 150-page report claimed an assistant to Shulkin “effectively acted as a personal travel concierge” during the course of the secretary’s trip. Shulkin was canned six weeks later.
Republicans close to the president said the Shulkin episode was bad not because of his imprudent use of taxpayer dollars, but because it reinforced an issue that has plagued the White House since Trump delivered his first Cabinet-level firing last fall.
“Shulkin, Carson, Pruitt, Price – they were supposed to drain the swamp, not become shining examples of it,” said one former Trump campaign official, who wants the president to let his EPA chief go too. “I wouldn’t mind if [Trump] ended the year with an entirely new Cabinet. My advice would be to find out which members respect the American taxpayers, and let the rest go back to their mansions.”
If Trump cut loose every Cabinet secretary who’s made headlines for private security costs, chartered flights, posh purchases, or curiously timed vacations, he would be pressing the Senate to confirm eight replacements.
Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt is already on thin ice for his frequent first-class travel on the taxpayer dime and his suspicious living arrangement in the condo of a top energy lobbyist. The EPA has also confirmed that Pruitt spent about $43,000 to install a soundproof phone booth in his office because it “was necessary for me to be able to do my job,” Pruitt told lawmakers.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is being investigated by House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., for spending $165,000 on “lounge furniture” in his government office.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price was forced to reimburse taxpayers after using chartered jets to conduct official government business. He was fired last September after Politico revealed his private air travel may have cost HHS more than $1 million.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke became the subject of an internal investigation at his agency last October after news broke that he used a chartered flight for government purposes. The $12,375 flight brought Zinke home to Montana after he delivered remarks to a professional hockey team in Las Vegas that is owned by one of his donors. That, too, is being probed by Justice Department ethics investigators as a potential Hatch Act violation. Zinke has also faced scrutiny for reportedly spending $139,000 on a new door for his office and requesting the creation of commemorative coins with his name on them to hand out to visitors of his agency.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry came under fire last fall for taking a chartered flight to an Ohio-based uranium-processing facility just one day after Price was ousted. However, the episode never quite drew the level of scrutiny attracted by Price, Pruitt, and others.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao used a taxpayer-funded aircraft last June to attend separate infrastructure events in Detroit and Washington at a cost of nearly $5,000 an hour. The expensive executive fleet has typically been reserved for special instances in which scheduling difficulties or security concerns would preclude a Cabinet secretary from flying commercial to an event, and though Chao did not violate any rules, her use of the government jets elicited several unflattering headlines last fall.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reportedly asked the Treasury’s ethics counsel last fall if it was lawful for him to use a $25,000-an-hour military plane to transport he and his wife to Europe for their honeymoon. Though he ultimately decided against the costly arrangement, Mnuchin billed taxpayers $800,000 for seven other executive aircraft flights during his first year on the job. That included an Aug. 21 flight to Fort Knox, Ky., which the Treasury’s Inspector General was asked to review following complaints that Mnuchin used the aircraft to travel to an optimal viewing location for last year’s solar eclipse. The IG report eventually cleared Mnuchin of any wrongdoing, but said his staff has often struggled to justify requests for the use of military aircraft.
Such abuses of taxpayer money have often eclipsed positive news for the president and been the source of great frustration for West Wing aides. The White House communications shop faced incessant questions last September when Price, the HHS secretary, was at the height of his chartered-plane scandal, at a time when they were preparing to launch Trump’s push for tax reform, a White House official said. Similarly, negative headlines blared in late February about Carson’s dining room furniture haul just as the White House was beginning to make progress on gun control in meetings with bipartisan lawmakers.
The temptation to spend agency funds and taxpayer dollars on seemingly unnecessary items and costly flights has undeniably become a problem for the Trump administration, but even more so for a president who campaigned against unscrupulous political figures. With the White House already struggling to overcome a series of other headaches, including several high-profile staff changes and a potential trade war with China, any new revelations of taxpayer abuse by his Cabinet could be the last straw for Trump.
“My hope is that Shulkin would be an example for the others, assuming none of them want to end up jobless,” said the White House official, who added that Trump’s staff is “sort of always waiting for the next shoe to drop.”
