Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price combined official business with personal business on at least two trips where he flew oon government-funded private jet, according to a report Tuesday.
Last month, Price flew a day and a half early on a private jet to St. Simons Island, a resort where he and his wife own land, to speak to local doctors at a medical conference he and his wife have attended for years.
Additionally, Price flew in a private jet in June to Nashville to tour a medicine dispensary and to speak to a local health summit, which was organized by a friend, and met his son for lunch during the trip, Politico reported. Price owns a condominium in Nashville and his son currently lives in the city.
Price’s frequent use of a private jet has already raised ethics questions, and the latest report of him mixing business with personal affairs has further heightened concerns.
“To use a charter flight on something that combines personal and government business, I think it’s highly unprofessional and really inappropriate,” Richard Painter, a top ethics official for President George W. Bush, told Politico.
Price has taken dozens of private jet flights since May because a commercial flight once caused him to cancel an important meeting, according to a report last week. However, the flight in question was booked on a day when many flights – commercial and private – were delayed or canceled due to a storm in the Washington area.
This incident occurred in April, and since May, the secretary has taken at least 24 flights via privately chartered planes, costing taxpayers nearly $300,000 as a result.
Price announced over the weekend that he would swear off the use of a charter jet for government work pending internal reviews of department policy on the flights.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee ranking member Elijah Cummings, D-Md., also wrote a letter to Price last week requesting information regarding the private jets.
“The amount of taxpayer funds you reportedly spent on just one single flight earlier this month is more than some of my constituents make in an entire year,” Cummings wrote to Price. Cummings requested Price submit detailed information and documents “relating to all non-commercial flights taken” by either Price or other HHS officials. He requested Price provide the information by Oct. 10.
