Trump Cabinet members who have faced questions over spending
Six current and former Cabinet members have faced spending scrutiny.
Six of President Donald Trump's Cabinet members have faced questions about improper spending since the president took office, including two who are no longer in office.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned in connection to concerns about his spending. Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is also no longer in that post. He says he was fired although the White House said he resigned.
Other Cabinet members have either weathered a storm over their spending or, like Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt, are in the middle of the tempest.
Expensive travel has been the most common reason for scrutiny, though other spending decisions such as a pricey dining room set, Wimbledon tickets, and a cheap rental have also sparked questions.
Here are the past and present members of Trump's Cabinet who have faced spending questions.
Scott Pruitt
The Environmental Protection Agency administrator is the latest to face scrutiny over spending.
As ABC News reported last week, Pruitt lived during his first six months in Washington, D.C., in a condo co-owned by Vicki Hart, whose husband, J. Steven Hart, is chairman of a top D.C. lobbying firm and who is registered to lobby for several major environmental and energy concerns.
The condo is in a prime location, less than a block from the U.S. Capitol complex, and other apartments in the duplex have rented for as much as $5,000-a-month, according to a source familiar with a neighboring condo's lease.
Pruitt paid $50 a night to lease a single bedroom in the three-story brick building, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg news. And later reporting found that Pruitt’s daughter also had a room in the condo. In all, Pruitt paid $6,100 for the rental, according to Bloomberg News which first reported the payment arrangement.
The price tag on the rental arrangement is one key question when determining if it constitutes an improper gift, ethics experts told ABC News.
Pruitt like some other Cabinet members has also faced questions over travel after it became public last month that he spent almost $118,000 on flights during his first year in his post, according to documents the EPA provided to the House Oversight Committee. Unlike some Cabinet members who have faced questions over taking private and chartered flights, Pruitt's travel bill reportedly stems from his selection of first or business class seats on commercial flights.
The EPA said in a letter to the Republican House committee chairman who requested the documents last month that the agency approved the administrator's flying first or business class based on a recommendation from his security detail.
Ben Carson
The Housing and Urban Development secretary came under scrutiny not for travel but furniture, specifically for a $31,000 dining table set ordered for a room off of Carson's office. Carson in early March told his agency to cancel the order.
After a HUD employee filed a complaint filed saying she felt pressured to approve funds to decorate Carson's office above the legal limit, the agency released documents detailing the furniture order.
Carson and his wife, Candy, released a statement on Twitter saying that "there has been no dishonesty and wrongdoing by us."
David Shulkin
Weeks before he left the Trump administration last week, then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin faced questions about a European trip last summer.
A blistering report from the VA's Office of the Inspector General in February found that Shulkin improperly accepted a gift of Wimbledon tickets during a work trip to Europe last summer during which he spent the majority of the time sightseeing.
Shulkin, his wife, Merle Bari, senior VA leaders and a six-member security detail flew on a commercial airline to Copenhagen in July to attend a day-and-a-half of meetings with Danish government and health care officials on veterans' issues, but the visit to Denmark also included a day of tourist stops.
The delegation then flew commercially to London to attend a conference on veterans' issues. But over half of the secretary's six days in the British capital were spent sightseeing, including a trip on the London Eye, a river cruise down the Thames, and attendance at the Wimbledon tennis tournament, according to the inspector general's report.
The 11-day trip altogether cost taxpayers at least $122,334, the report said. It also alleged that Shulkin's chief of staff altered a document and misrepresented information to ethics officials in way that led to his wife's airfare being covered by taxpayer dollars.
Shulkin, who slammed the report as "a direct assault on my spouse, my character and my unblemished record of service," ended up repaying $4,000 for his wife's travel expenses.
Tom Price
As Health and Human Services secretary, Tom Price took as many as 26 private flights and flew on military planes on trips to Europe at an estimated cost to taxpayers of over $1 million, according to Politico, which first broke the news of the private flights.
The travel drew widespread criticism from Democrats, prompted the HHS inspector general to launch an investigation and ultimately led to President Trump's asking for Price's resignation in September.
He was the first member of Trump's Cabinet to leave.
Politico noted that Price's taking chartered jets on official business did not explicitly violate government regulations, but that past health secretaries had typically flown commercially, especially when traveling domestically.
At the time of his resignation, a source with knowledge of Price's intentions said that he would repay $51,887.31 for the flights, just a fraction of the over $400,000 that the chartered flights were said to have cost. Military flights to Africa, Asia and Europe, on which Price was joined by his wife, pushed the total cost over $1 million, according to Politico.
As of March, Price had repaid the government about $59,400 for travel expenses, href="http://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/wireStory/ousted-health-secretary-tom-price-repaid-60k-travel-53710635" target="_blank">The Associated Press reported.
Steve Mnuchin
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, a wealthy former Goldman Sachs banker, used a military jet to travel with his wife to Louisville and Fort Knox, Kentucky, in August. That trip prompted a review by the Treasury Department's inspector general of whether Mnuchin improperly used the jet to catch a prime view of the solar eclipse with his wife, Louise Linton, a Scottish actress and model.
Mnuchin also in summer 2017 requested use of a government jet to take him and his wife on their honeymoon in Scotland, France and Italy, sources told ABC News in September.
Officials familiar with the matter said the highly unusual request for a U.S. Air Force jet, which according to an Air Force spokesman could cost roughly $25,000 per hour to operate, for Mnuchin's honeymoon travel was put in writing by his office but was deemed unnecessary after further consideration by Treasury Department officials.
A spokesman for the Treasury Department told ABC News that Mnuchin requested government travel for his honeymoon out of concern for maintaining secure communications.
Ryan Zinke
Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke's agency approved spending more than $139,000 on new doors and repairs for his office, news first reported by The Associated Press in early March and confirmed by ABC News.
Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift said in a statement at the time that Zinke was not aware of the order before the AP report and agrees that it is too expensive.
“This project was requested by career facilities and security officials at Interior as part of the decade-long modernization of the historic FDR-era building," Swift said.
Zinke also came under scrutiny for chartering three flights between March and September 2017, including a June 26 flight from Las Vegas to Kalispell, Montana, that cost $12,375, according to Interior Department spokeswoman Heather Swift.
Another chartered flight shuttled Zinke between the Caribbean islands of St. Croix and St. Thomas for the U.S. Virgin Islands Centennial Transfer Day Ceremony.
In a statement, Swift said “the secretary traveled on charter flights when there were no commercial options available,” adding that the department’s ethics office approves all travel in advance of booking.
Politico was the first to report on Zinke's chartered flights.
Zinke responded to the reports directly, calling it "a little B.S. on travel," during a speech at the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.
"I intend to continue flying in the benefit of official duties," said Zinke, adding, "Every time I travel I submit the travel plan to the ethics department that evaluates it line by line to make sure that I am above the law and I follow the law."
ABC News' Meghan Keneally, Lucien Bruggeman, Jordyn Phelps, Justin Fishel, Elizabeth McLaughlin, Luis Martinez, Stephanie Ebbs, John Santucci, and Matthew Mosk contributed to this report.
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