Mike Blake | Reuters
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reacts during a press conference after attending the Franchise Expo West in Los Angeles, California, November 2, 2017.
In a report issued in October, Treasury’s IG said that Mnuchin’s eight flights on military jets, to destinations that ranged from West Virginia to Italy, at a cost of more than $800,000, were legal.
However, the lawyer who conducted that probe said that “just because something is legal doesn’t make it right.”
The IG’s report into Mnuchin found that while the travel was approved by the White House, the justification for the secretary taking military jets “in almost all cases,” was thin, at best.
Mnuchin’s travel on military jets included a trip to Fort Knox in Kentucky with his wife, Scottish actress Louis Linton.
The Mnuchins ended up reimbursing the government for the cost of Linton’s travel after furor erupted over Linton’s sarcastic Instagram response to a woman who had criticized the actress over a photo she posted from that trip.
And a Treasury spokeswoman after the report was issued said the department would incorporate the IG’s calls for improvements to the travel approval process.
Choice of planes is not the only thing that has gotten Cabinet chiefs on the radar of watchdogs.
