High-flying Price quits over jet use
Other Trump cabinet picks also have questions to answer over flights on private planes
WASHINGTON— U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned on Friday in the wake of the revelation that he had spent more than $400,000 (U.S.) of taxpayer money on private-plane flights and another $500,000 flying on military planes.
Price, a longtime critic of federal spending, is the first member of President Donald Trump’s cabinet to leave the tumultuous and errorplagued administration. Trump had previously fired or pressured out his national security adviser, chief of staff, chief strategist and FBI director.
Trump said earlier Friday that he was “not happy” with Price and planned to make a decision later in the day about whether to fire him.
Saying he had not been “sensitive enough to my concern for the taxpayer,” Price announced on Thursday that he would stop taking charter flights and repay what he said was the cost of his own seats on the private-plane flights: $51,887.
But that did not satisfy critics, who noted that all of the costs for the flights, not just the cost of his seats, were incurred because he decided to fly private. Trump accepted his resignation on Friday afternoon, the White House announced in a statement.
“I have spent 40 years both as a doctor and public servant putting people first. I regret that the recent events have created a distraction from these important objectives,” Price told Trump in his resignation letter.
Trump appointed Don Wright, director of the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, as acting secretary.
Price’s precedent-breaking flights on private planes, at least 26 of them in all, were revealed in a series of articles by the website Politico. They included a flight for Price to get to an exclusive resort island where he
“I have spent 40 years both as a doctor and public servant putting people first.” TOM PRICE IN RESIGNATION LETTER
owns property — two days before he delivered remarks to a nearby medical conference.
Price also took a $25,000 flight from Washington to Philadelphia, a route that can be travelled by car or train in less than three hours and for less than $100.
Price initially insisted he had done nothing wrong, though his predecessors have traditionally taken regular commercial flights.
“This is Secretary Price, getting outside of D.C., making sure he is connected with the real American people,” Charmaine Yoest, his assistant secretary for public affairs, told the Washington Post. “Wasting four hours in an airport and having the secretary cancel his event is not a good use of taxpayer money.”
But the inspector general for his department launched an investigation, and Trump said he was displeased.
“I am not happy about it,” Trump said Wednesday. “I’m going to look at it. I am not happy about it and I let him know it.” On Friday, he called Price a “fine man,” but reiterated his displeasure. The scandal had deepened on Thursday, when Politico reported that the White House had approved more than $500,000 in travel on military jets to Asia, Africa and Europe.
Price is a former Georgia congressman. He played a significant role in the so-far-unsuccessful GOP push to replace Obamacare. He has also been involved in the effort to combat the national opioid epidemic.
Price was merely one of four Trump cabinet members under scrutiny over their flying habits.
The inspector general of the Treasury Department is investigating Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s August flight to Kentucky on a government jet for a trip that included time spent watching the solar eclipse. The inspector general is also probing Mnuchin’s alleged request to use a government jet for his honeymoon.
Environmental Protection Agency administrator Scott Pruitt has also taken at least four non-commercial flights, costing more than $58,000, the Post reported Wednesday.
And the Washington Post reported Thursday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke billed taxpayers $12,375 for a flight from Las Vegas to his home state of Montana, on a private plane owned by oil executives, after a “motivational” speech to the Las Vegas NHL team owned by a significant donor to his previous congressional campaigns.