Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price has sworn off the use of a charter jet for government work pending internal reviews of department policy on the flights.
“I don’t think there will be any charter trips until this review is complete,” Price said on Fox News during a Saturday interview. “I think that’s appropriate because of the concerns that we’ve heard.”
Price, a former Georgia Republican lawmaker, has taken criticism across the political spectrum following reports that he chartered a private plane repeatedly at taxpayer expense, despite the availability of lower-cost commercial flights. Price’s team maintained that the $300,000 spent on private flights were necessary due to a tight schedule, but the former congressman acknowledged it was a political blunder.
“The optics in some of this don’t look good,” he admitted.
Price has taken 24 charter flights since May, reportedly after he missed a meeting due to a commercial flight that suffered a weather delay. “This is Secretary Price, getting outside of D.C., making sure he is connected with the real American people,” Charmaine Yoest, HHS’s spokesperson, 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.”
Price said that he has launched an internal review, in addition to an investigation by the department’s inspector general. “We will cooperate fully with it,” Price said. “We want to make certain that we have the full confidence not just of this administration but the American people.”
