COWBOY LOGIC: U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder took 62 out-of-town trips in fiscal year 2011 at a cost of at least $1.45 million, according to a set of disclosures sent to Bloomberg News. Holder’s travel during the period included an April 2011 trip to Las Vegas, marked business and personal, that cost $46,358. Nine other trips, including visits to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Miami, were labeled “personal,” and cost a combined $169,502. He took an $83,002 flight to Krakow, Poland, to attend the G-6 summit. Flight costs for seven trips, including journeys to China, Hawaii and Brussels, weren’t provided. As attorney general, Holder is a “required use” official who is compelled by executive order to use government aircraft for all travel while in office due to “security and communications needs,” according to a February 2013 U.S. Government Accountability Office report. Holder got to most of his destinations on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Gulfstream V which, according to GAO, has a flight range of over 6,000 miles, allowing nonstop flights all the way from Washington to Afghanistan. For personal trips, Holder is required to reimburse the government for the equivalent commercial coach fare, which is often much less than the total trip costs, the GAO said. For example, a Gulfstream V flight to New York on November 13, 2010, cost $15,894. The reimbursement rate was $420.80, according to GAO.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 03:14:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015