9-29-17

Draining the swamp!

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned on Friday amid continuing controversy over his frequent use of government-funded private jets, the White House says.

U.S. Health Secretary Price Resigns Amid Private Jet Controversy

Source BNO News

Tom Price resigns after controversy over #privateflights

Source Business Insider

#Ethics Attorney Blasts Trump #CabinetTravel

Former White House chief ethics attorney Richard Painter blasted the Trump administration on spending taxpayers’ money by asking, “are these officials there to protect the American people, to protect the taxpayer, or are they there to protect special interests?”

Source AP

House probes cabinet members’ use of government jets

House investigators are probing top Trump Administrators officials who flew on government planes and expensive private chartered jets as they traveled across the country on government and personal business.

The House Oversight Committee has demanded answers from Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price and other Cabinet officials about how much taxpayers’ are paying for the flights.

Under Federal Travel Regulations, officials are told to take the “most expeditious” means of transportation and “by no means should include personal use,” Chairman Trey Gowdy and ranking member Elijah Cummings wrote in a letter to Price.

Similar letters from the committee were sent to 23 other agencies and the White House, Politico reported.

Price spent more than $400,000 on taxpayer-funded private jet travel since May, according to the website.

A story on Tuesday detailed how Price’s trips combined personal and official travel, including a $17,760 round trip on a charter jet to Nashville, where Price stayed less than six hours and lunched with his son, the website reported.

Once the car got out of the bag, Price said he would stop taking private jets until the HHS inspector general finishes a review of his pricey trips on the taxpayers’ dime.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was also on the hot seat for a trip he and his designer-loving wife took to Fort Knox to watch the lunar eclipse.

He also wanted to use a government jet for his European honeymoon but later withdrew his request.

EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt also used private planes, CBS News reported.

Gowdy and Cummings want details on senior officials’ use of non-commercial planes, including the airplane manifest, the trip’s destination, purpose and cost as well as the dates of use.

Agencies were asked to respond by Oct. 10.   Source NY Post

EPA chief Pruitt took a private flight that cost taxpayers more than $14,000

CBS News’ Julianna Goldman reported Tuesday that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt took an expensive military flight in June, and a charter flight in August. On Wednesday, Goldman learned Pruitt flew within his home state of Oklahoma on a private plane in July. That trip cost taxpayers more than $14,000.

Source CBS Evening News

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s travel request raises red flags

The Treasury Department’s Inspector General launched an ‘inquiry’ after Mnuchin formally requested the use of a government jet for his European honeymoon.

Source ABC News

Mnuchin’s wife defends wealth against critic in Instagram post

Former Rep. Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) and former Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) on Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s wife’s Instagram post.

Source Fox Business

Steve Mnuchin BUSTED Using Government Jet for Honeymoon

Source The Majority Report

Tom Price resigns as Trump administration health chief after outrage over private jet flights

• Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned Friday after criticism over his repeatedly taking expensive private jets instead of commercial flights.
• Price’s private travel, added to his use of military jets for overseas trips, has cost taxpayers more than $1 million.
• Price said he will reimburse the government just a fraction of the cost of the flights.

Tom Price out as HHS Secretary  22 Mins Ago | 01:09

Tom Price, secretary of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, resigned Friday amid a furor over his taking more than two dozen costly private plane trips instead of less-expensive commercial flights.

The White House in a statement said that President Donald Trump intends to tap a top HHS official, Don Wright, to serve as acting secretary of the department.

Wright currently serves as deputy assistant secretary for health and director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.

“Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price offered his resignation earlier today and the President accepted,” the White House said, about an hour after Trump said he would decide by Friday night whether to fire Price.

Following the announcement, House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement that Price is a good man who “has spent his entire adult life fighting for others, first as a physician and then as a legislator and public servant.”

“He was a leader in the House and a superb health secretary. His vision and hard work were vital to the House’s success passing our health care legislation. I will always be grateful for Tom’s service to this country and, above all, his continued friendship,” Ryan said.

Price’s resignation came a day after he said he would reimburse taxpayers for just a small fraction of the cost of his flights, and after he vowed to not use charter planes in the future.

A longtime critic of wasteful federal spending and the administration’s putative point man on attacking Obamacare — Price had taken 26 flights on charter plans since May, according to a Politico investigation.

In June, Price traveled on a $17,760 roundtrip charter from Washington to Nashville, Tennessee, Politico revealed. He spent less than six hours there, making two official appearances and eating lunch with his son.

In a four-day stretch in September, Price took flights costing an estimated $60,000 in total, according to Politico. Some of those flights came at times when dramatically cheaper commercial air travel would have been available.

Politico on Thursday reported that Price had also taken trips overseas using military jets, at a cost of more than $500,000 — putting the total tab for his penchant for pricey travel above $1 million.

Also Thursday, BuzzFeed News reported that Price had asked a White House official soon after taking office to tell Trump that he wanted to reopen the executive dining room at HHS, which had been closed since George W. Bush was president.

Price, who only became health secretary in February, was reportedly already on thin ice with top officials in the Trump administration when the controversy exploded over his pricey jet jaunts.

Those officials believed he did not do enough in recent weeks to support an ultimately doomed, last-ditch effort in Congress to repeal and replace major parts of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare.

Price’s department for months has been taking steps to undercut that major health-care law — gutting advertising budgets designed to promote enrollment in Obamacare plans, suspending joint efforts with state-level groups to encourage insurance sign-ups and bad-mouthing Obamacare at every opportunity.

But he was noticeably absent at meetings to promote the passage of the Senate repeal bill, Graham-Cassidy, in September, Politico reported. That bill would have dramatically slashed federal spending on subsidizing health insurance coverage for Americans.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump told reporters “I am not happy about” Price’s use of private planes, “and I let him know it.”

“We’ll see,” Trump said, when asked if he would fire Price.

Price on Thursday had tried to tamp down the controversy by saying he would repay the government for the cost of “my seat” on the charter flights. Price said he will pay about $52,000 of the more than $400,000 taxpayer tab for his private trips. 

The 62-year-old Price, a former House member from Georgia, was a prominent critic of Obamacare while serving in Congress.

He also had billed himself as a staunch fiscal conservative with a record of pushing for government spending discipline.

Price leaves the Trump administration after the latest in an unsuccessful string of Republican attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

His departure also comes amid broader concerns about the ethical standards of the Trump administration and its top officials.

While Price has said he received prior approval from legal and HHS advisors for his private flights, his use of charters was in stark contrast to that of his two immediate predecessors as chief of HHS, Sylvia Burwell and Kathleen Sebelius, who took commercial flights to domestic engagements.

HHS’ inspector general is now reviewing Price’s use of private planes.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt also has racked up a $58,000 bill on noncommercial and military flights since mid-February, according to The Washington Post.

In a letter to Trump on Thursday, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, pointed out that “federal regulations specifically prohibit official travel by chartered jet when it is not the most cost-effective mode of travel ‘because the taxpayer should pay no more than necessary for your transportation.’”

Grassley asked Trump to urge his Cabinet secretaries to use “reasonable and cost-effective modes of travel.”

The senator noted that in addition to questions about the travel habits of Price and Pruitt, the inspector general of the Treasury Department is investigating the travel expenses of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

During his Senate confirmation hearings as HHS secretary, Price was criticized for having traded more than $300,000 worth of about 40 health-care stocks in the previous four years, which involved companies that could have benefited from legislation he favored as a House member.

For one of those companies, the small Australian biotech firm Innate Immunotherapeutics, Price was offered the opportunity to buy shares at a discount, while sitting on a committee that could affect the financial outlook of the firm.

Price eventually sold his stake in the company during the HHS confirmation process and made a profit of at least $225,000 on a $94,000 investment, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Price during his Senate hearings denied that he invested using nonpublic information.

“Everything that we have done is absolutely aboveboard, transparent, legal and ethical,” he said at the time. Source CNBC

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