Donald Trump’s housing secretary is embroiled in a controversy over ritzy and self-serving renovations he allegedly wants to make at the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s new headquarters at taxpayers’ expense.
No need to pinch yourself. The year is 2025 — not 2018, when then-HUD Secretary Ben Carson faced backlash after a $31,000 dining set was ordered for his office without the required approval from Congress. He ultimately canceled the order amid media scrutiny.
But in the world of Trump scandals, it seems all that is old is made new again: The current HUD secretary, Scott Turner, is now at the center of an oddly similar scenario.
On Wednesday, Turner held a news conference with Virginia’s Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, to announce HUD’s plans to boot employees of the National Science Foundation out of their Northern Virginia headquarters to make room for HUD to move in. As secretary, Turner has taken an odd interest in slashing his department’s budget, cutting its staff and selling HUD’s headquarters in Washington.
Earlier this week, the American Federation of Government Employees claimed that it had been informed that new plans for the Northern Virginia building included a host of seemingly lavish alterations:
- “A dedicated executive suite for the HUD Secretary on the 19th floor.”
- “The construction of an executive dining room.”
- “Reserved parking spaces for the Secretary’s 5 cars.”
- “Exclusive use of one elevator for the Secretary.”
- “A space dedicated to hosting the Secretary’s executive assistants on the 18th floor.”
- “A potential gym for the HUD Secretary and his family.”
“This kind of let-them-eat-cake approach to government is absurd,” the union wrote in a news release. “At a time when they claim to be cutting government waste, it is unbelievable that government funding is being redirected to build a palace-like office for the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The hypocrisy is truly dumbfounding.”
When asked about the claims at his news conference, Turner said: “That’s ridiculous. And it’s not true.”
“This is about the HUD employees — to have a safe space, to have a nice place to work, to represent the people that we serve in America,” he added. As far as cringeworthy images of executive branch entitlement go, this story ranks right up there with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s office allegedly deploying staffers to bake cookies, which Burgum — similar to Turner — vehemently denies. It seems we’ll have to take a wait-and-see approach with HUD’s new headquarters, though the fact there’s speculation at all is arguably a bad look — and one that is only shining more light on the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to downsize federal agencies and, seemingly, inconvenience much of the federal workforce. At the moment, it’s not clear where the National Science Foundation employees will end up, but a General Services Administration official said at the news conference that the GSA will help the foundation find another building.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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