ETHICS/HHS/TOM PRICE: “Tom Price, the secretary of health and human services, said on Saturday [9-23-17] that he did not plan to travel on private jets until the department’s inspector general completes a formal review of the use of taxpayer funds for his chartered flights…
In a report published late Saturday afternoon, Politico said it had identified more than $400,000 in spending on private jets for Mr. Price’s travels since May. The report said that taxpayers paid for Mr. Price to take at least 26 flights on private charter planes in that time.
In an interview on Fox News on Saturday, Mr. Price acknowledged that ‘the optics in some of this don’t look good.’ Still, he maintained that each chartered trip had been legally reviewed.
The secretary said that his department’s inspector general was conducting ‘a review and an audit’ of the approval process, and that he had also initiated a separate ‘internal departmental review of the procedures.’
‘We’ve heard this criticism, and we’re very, very serious about addressing it,’ Mr. Price told Fox News…
Tesia D. Williams, a spokeswoman for the department’s Office of Inspector General, confirmed late Saturday that the office was reviewing Mr. Price’s use of chartered aircrafts for government travel.”
-Matt Stevens, “Tom Price Says He’ll Stop Use of Private Jets Until After Review,” The New York Times online, Sept. 23, 2017