Carson defends purchase of new $31,000 dining set
Flap over expensive table is one of many involving lavish spending by Trump Cabinet members
Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said yesterday the purchase of a $31,000 (Dh113,847) dining set for his office was made for safety reasons and after consultation with his wife, Candy Carson.
Testifying during an appearance on Capitol Hill after weeks of scrutiny over the furniture set — a mahogany dining table, chairs and a hutch for private lunches with guests — Carson called the decision to replace the existing set with the new one “facilities” issue and not a decorating one because of concerns about the old set.
“It’s my understanding that the facilities people felt that the dining room table was actually dangerous,” he told a House Appropriations subcommittee. “People are being stuck by nails, a chair collapsed with somebody sitting in it, it’s 50 years old.”
Questions have swirled about Carson’s role in the furniture purchase since its disclosure in February, leading to speculation that Carson could be yet another prominent member to depart President Donald Trump’s administration. One of many Trump Cabinet members to fall under scrutiny for what some have criticised as excessive personal spending, Carson has also been questioned for his family’s role in official business, including that of his son, Ben junior, an investor, who helped organise a series of meetings in Baltimore last summer, despite the advice of department lawyers against it.
On Tuesday, Carson said that a few months after he became secretary, he was told — by whom, he did not specify — that the dining room set in his 10th floor office needed to be changed.
Carson said. “I asked my wife also to help me with that.”
Carson said he and his wife Candy were shown some catalogues — again he did not clarify by whom — and said he had communicated the prices were “beyond what I wanted to pay”.
“I made it clear that just didn’t seem right to me,” Carson said. “And I left it with my wife. I said help choose something.”
He also said that his wife chose the style and colour “with the caveat that we were not happy with the pricing and they needed to find something”.
“If anybody knew my wife, they would realise how ridiculous this was,” Carson said. “She’s the most frugal person in the world.”
He said that he first heard about the table’s hefty price tag around the time that news reports came out about it, Carson said, at which point he “immediately had it cancelled”.
Carson’s testimony appeared to contradict previous accounts of the case. HUD spokesman Raffi Williams initially told media outlets that “Mrs Carson and the secretary had no awareness that the table was being purchased,” when news of its purchase became public in February, and emails between HUD staffers emerged later that indicated that Carson and his wife had weighed in on the purchase.