Even before Donald Trump became president, it was appropriately predicted that he would use the presidency to line his pockets full of taxpayer money. With growing conflicts of interest, using the Secret Service to funnel taxpayer money to the Trump Organization and nominating billionaires to lead federal agencies to run them into the ground, there are now new reports of some of those cabinet officials abusing more taxpayer money.
Mnuchin, Chao, and Price on private planes
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's use of a C-37 jet — which costs $25,000 per hour to operate — is now being reviewed by the Office of Inspector General of his department.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao was also said to have used the jet as well. But, Health and Human Services Secretary tom price is also under review by his department's IG for taking 24 flights at taxpayer's expense on private charter planes.
Politico reported in an article titled: "price traveled by private plane at least 24 times", that the trips that Price has taken "exceeds $300,000". Officials who are aware of the secretary's travel have said that he's only used the private charter planes when commercial travel wasn't "feasible."
Comparing Mnuchin and Price's use of taxpayer money
The definition of feasible is debatable as Politico pointed out that many of those flights were to cities that have low-cost airline fares.
With regards to Mnuchin's reasons for taking a government jet, he said that he needed something that would provide him with a secure communications system so he could speak to Washington.
But before his use of the jet plane, only the Defense Department, Homeland Security and State Department officials used it and for international flights, not domestic ones as Mnuchin had used.
One comparison Politico made was with round-trip flights priced online costing as low as $202 compared to the Price's private charter which was at $17,760. That pricing is according to the department's contract with Classic Air Charter.
The top HHS spokesperson, Charmaine Yoest, released a statement about Price's charter flights saying that he had used them to accommodate his demanding schedule adding that the week of September 13 was one of those times.
They said that Price was directing recovery from Hurricane Irma and Harvey at the same time. Prior to this, however, the HHS Secretary had taken 17 charter flights, which included some that were not an official business for the cabinet official.
