A senior official at the Housing and Urban Development Department (HUD) alleges that she was demoted after pushing back on requests to spend more than was allowed on the redecoration of Secretary Ben Carson’s office, The Guardian reported Tuesday morning.
The official, Helen Foster, filed a complaint to the Office of the Special Counsel (OSC), a government watchdog, and The Guardian obtained the complaint.
In the complaint, Foster alleged that acting HUD director Craig Clemmensen directed her to help Carson’s wife, Candy Carson, access funds to redecorate Ben Carson’s office in January 2017. When Foster informed Clemmensen that there was a $5,000 budget cap on redecorating, Clemmensen told her that past administrations “always found ways around that” and later told her to “to ‘find money’ for Mrs Carson,” according to the complaint. Clemmensen also told Foster in February that “$5,000 will not even buy a decent chair,” per the complaint.
Foster said in the complaint that she was demoted after pushing back on Clemmenson’s demands. She also alleged that she was blocked from handling a Freedom of Information Act Request related to Trump appointee Lynne Patton.
Read The Guardian’s full report here.
If all you did in your office all day was sit at your desk, humming tunelessly and occasionally moving a pencil from one side of the blotter to the other, you’d want a nice chair too. So everything is fine.
“only the best people” Nearly all the individuals in this administration are in on the grift of the American taxpayer.
She wouldn’t pay $10K for a gold-framed photocopy of Ben with Jesus?
Uncle Ben screwing the taxpayer…
This administration constitutes fractal graft. The self-similarity is plain as day: no matter how large or small a feature you focus on, no matter how deep you drill down or how far you zoom out, every appointee (and up to the dotard himself) looks just as petty and corrupt and shamelessly unscrupulous.