Democrat Nydia Velázquez accused Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson of corruption and of allowing thousands of people to die on his watch because of his handling of relief funds from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria struck the island in 2017.
“You withheld the money just to Puerto Rico. The simple answer to this is the disdain and contempt of this administration toward the people of Puerto Rico,” Velázquez, who represents a New York district and is originally from Puerto Rico, said during a House Financial Services Committee hearing on affordable housing Tuesday. “3,000 people died in Puerto Rico under your watch.”
She added angrily, “If this was about corruption as you claimed in the press, so deal with your own corruption when [Federal Emergency Management Agency officials] were arrested in Puerto Rico.”
Several former FEMA officials were arrested last month in a federal corruption investigation into alleged bribes for awarding a contract to repair Puerto Rico’s electrical grid. HUD has also struggled to disburse funds to Puerto Rico on time. More generally, the federal government has failed to pay out disaster aid as scheduled.
Valazquez ended her speech by saying “You know what sir, we’re going to find out what motivated for you to withhold this money from the people of Puerto Rico.”
Carson responded by saying “We have nothing to hide, so I’d be glad for you to get that information.”
The House Financial Services Committee ranking Republican, Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, responded to Velázquez’s criticism by saying that “to accuse a cabinet secretary of personal corruption, which is what the gentle-lady did, is not becoming of members of this committee.”
