Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kent.) appeared on Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night to denounce the “public deception by the president” that has been made clear by Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber’s “lack of transparency” comments.
“There was the public deception by the president and all of his henchmen and women, but also the deception of paid consultants,” Paul reflected on Gruber’s remarks, flabbergasted.
Recommended Stories
The Kentucky senator then proposed that an investigation be started into the “deceptive and deceitful” Gruber and that the money he received for the consultant work he did on Obamacare be returned.
“I’m going to ask for an investigation from the investigator general and ask that he return his pay,” Paul affirmed. “Because how can you — how can we pay someone to be a consultant to government who’s frankly admitting that they were dishonest? So I think he should be made to return his pay.”
And, according to Paul, Gruber’s repayment should not stop at the reported $400,000 he received for his work on the Affordable Care Act.
“The other thing we ought to investigate is there’s about ten different states where he got between $200,000 and $400,000 for specific reports,” said the Republican lawmaker. “Who was sort of organizing this for him? Is this some sort of thing that happened within government? Was he just able to market himself everywhere? Or was this all coming as sort of an organized way to enrich Obama consultants?”
“This is a disgrace,” Paul continued. “Now totals are saying as much as $6 million. I think we ought to talk about having him give it back to the taxpayer.”
Obama and members of his administration have dismissed Gruber’s comments as those with which they “disagree,” and the president also described Gruber as someone who “was never on our staff.”
Gruber has been the subject of much scrutiny — and social media hashtags — since multiple videos of surfaced of him attributing the Affordable Care Act’s passage to the law’s opaqueness and American “stupidity.”
