USA TODAY US Edition

GRIFTING IS NORMAL IN TRUMP ERA

Tom Price spent taxpayer money on private jets. He thought that was fine. Why wouldn’t he?

- Cheri Jacobus Cheri Jacobus, a Republican consultant and commentato­r, is president of Capitol Strategies PR.

In the 1990 Martin Scorsese film The Grifters, the con artists of the title sell out their own flesh and blood and seem confident they can keep the con going. Until recently, we’ve had reason to be confident that despite other flaws, our elected officials and public servants keep watch on those who seem too comfortabl­e spending our tax dollars on themselves.

“Mr. Watkins has resigned and the taxpayers will be fully reimbursed. The taxpayers will not be out one red cent.”

That was President Clinton in spring 1994 after David Watkins, the White House director of administra­tion, used a presidenti­al Marine One fleet helicopter to travel to a golf course near Frederick, Md., with another aide. They were hosting an administra­tor of Camp David.

The local newspaper, The Frederick News-Post, published a seemingly innocuous photo of the government chopper at the golf course, complete with a Marine in dress uniform saluting as the party boarded with their clubs after hitting the links. No caption. No names. The “United States of America” was plastered as plain as day on the side of the craft.

JAW-DROPPING

As the press secretary to the local congressma­n, Republican Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, I obviously took note and immediatel­y showed the odd photo to my boss. He fired off a letter to the White House, and we alerted news outlets and House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s office. We pushed until we extricated from an embarrasse­d White House the names of the individual­s abusing their privilege and our coffers.

Watkins, who led the excursion and used the government chopper, was toast.

In a similar incident a few years earlier, White House Chief of Staff John Sununu was in the headlines for inappropri­ately running up travel bills on the taxpayers’ dime. Sununu was forced to reimburse the government several thousand dollars, and the kerfuffle contribute­d to his terminatio­n as top aide to President George H.W. Bush.

Both parties took a strong stance against government officials being so blatantly cavalier about wasting our tax dollars on personal trips, or when more economical transport is readily available for business.

These Sununu and Watkins incidents led the headlines for days and live on in the history books and Wikipedia, so serious were the offenses in the eyes of presidents, Republican­s, Democrats, the news media and the public. The role of the photograph­er for that small-town Frederick newspaper was so significan­t, it was mentioned in his 2010 obituary. Chances are one day, Sununu’s obit will include his forced resignatio­n and fall from grace.

Yet in the Trump administra­tion, we routinely see the arrogance and abuse of this team of grifters.

In one week earlier this month, Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price took private jets on five trips billed as “official travel,” though commercial air travel would have saved taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. (His recent predecesso­rs flew commercial when traveling domestical­ly on official business.) This came after the jaw-dropping news that Trump’s Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, tried (and failed) to score a government jet for his European honeymoon. And now Politico reports that Price has taken at least 24 private flights costing $300,000.

PILLAGE AND PLUNDER

While in Congress, Price was a vocal proponent of cutting wasteful spending, and he currently backs cutting his own agency’s budget by 18%. In a 2009 inter- view with CNBC, he attacked Democrats for trying to spend

$550 million for eight private passenger jets. He wanted $0 for

0 planes.

The hypocrisy is thick, but not surprising. President Trump has become the poster boy for using and abusing our tax dollars for his personal travel and profit. Each of his trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida is estimated to cost us

$1 million to $3 million.

And much of the money goes to Trump himself. The government pays him to house his guests and entourage, and the Secret Service incurred $60,000 in golf cart rentals to protect the president and his family at the resort in just the first eight months of this presidency. That’s $60,000 going to Trump, courtesy of We the Taxpayers.

As Trump administra­tion officials see others bilking taxpayers for their non-essential travel expenditur­es, and watch the grifter in chief spend our money as if it’s his own, expect more pillaging and plundering unless and until congressio­nal leaders stand up for us and guard the piggy bank.

Spoiler Alert: In The Grifters, the con men and women destroy each other in the end.

 ?? EVAN VUCCI, AP ?? Health and Human Services chief Tom Price and the Trumps at a Trump resort in Bedminster, N.J., in August.
EVAN VUCCI, AP Health and Human Services chief Tom Price and the Trumps at a Trump resort in Bedminster, N.J., in August.

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