Carson tries to cancel $31,000 furniture order for renovation
WASHINGTON — Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development, is attempting to cancel a $31,000 order for a customized hardwood dining room table, chairs, sideboard and hutch the day after the chairman of the House Oversight Committee announced an investigation into the refurbishment of his HUD office.
“At the request of the secretary, the agency is working to rescind the order for the dining room set,” Armstrong Williams, Carson’s business manager and an informal adviser, said Thursday.
He added, however, that “it might not be possible.”
On Tuesday, Raffi Williams, a department spokesman, said Carson had no problem with the order and no intention of returning the table. But early Thursday, Williams said the secretary, who was sharply criticized for the purchase at a time when his agency is facing $6.8 billion in budget cuts requested by the White House, seemed to change his mind.
“Nobody was more surprised than me,” about the order, Carson said in a statement.
But several department officials, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said it would have been highly unusual for Carson not to have been told that a significant section of his office suite was about to be upgraded.
According to Williams, neither Carson nor his wife, Candy Carson, had any prior knowledge of the order, although a whistleblower has said Candy Carson had pressured her to circumvent a $5,000 statutory limit on renovation expenses.
Canceling the order for the custom-made furniture will not be easy, and it is unlikely the government will recoup all of its money even if the dining room set is never delivered. It was ordered Dec. 21 from a small Baltimore company.
“He’s not returning the table; he is attempting to cancel the order,” Williams said. “HUD is a bureaucracy, so everything is complicated. The person they contracted has already spent $14,000 making the table.”
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the Oversight Committee, sent Carson’s staff a letter Wednesday demanding an explanation for the purchase of the dining room set, which might have violated a federal law requiring congressional approval for any office renovation expense exceeding $5,000.
BOSTON — A Massachusetts man was arrested Thursday and charged with sending letters with white powder to five people, including one to Donald Trump Jr. that landed his wife, Vanessa, in the hospital.
Daniel Frisiello, of Beverly, is accused of mailing five envelopes early last month with threatening messages and a white substance, which turned out to be nonhazardous. The envelopes were postmarked in Boston.
Frisiello showed no emotion as he was led into federal court in Worcester. A prosecutor said family members told them Frisiello may be on medications for suicidal thoughts.
“These kind of hoaxes may not cause physical harm, but they scare the heck out of people,” said Andrew Lelling, U.S. attorney for Massachusetts.
Hoax attacks using white powder play on fears that date to 2001, when letters containing anthrax were mailed to news organizations and two U.S. senators. Those letters killed five people.
Federal authorities said one of Frisiello’s letters containing powder was sent to Antonio Sabato Jr., the former underwear model and soap opera actor who is running as a Republican for a U.S. House seat in California.
Other recipients were Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic U.S. senator from Michigan; Nicola Hanna, an interim U.S. attorney in California; and Michele Dauber, a Stanford University law professor who has promoted the effort to recall the judge who presided over the Brock Turner sexual assault case.
The letter to the president’s son was opened by Vanessa Trump on Feb. 12. She called 911 and reported she was coughing and felt nauseous. She was hospitalized briefly.
The substance turned out to be cornstarch.
The envelope sent to Trump Jr. included a message calling him an “awful, awful person,” according to documents. “I am surprised that your father lets you speak on TV,” the message said. “You make the family idiot, Eric, look smart.”