Trey Gowdy Investigates Ben Carson's $31,000 Dining Set

A congressional oversight committee is asking Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson to provide documents explaining why the agency decided to buy a $31,000 dining set for the secretary's office suite - despite a $5,000 limit on spending to redecorate offices.

The House Oversight Committee letter asks HUD to produce documents and communication related to redecorating the secretary's office.

Oversight committee asks Ben Carson to explain purchase of $31,000 dining set



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I liked the quote from the story, "$5,000 doesn't even buy a decent chair."

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson has asked to cancel an order for an expensive dining set that prompted outrage this week after revelations that it cost the agency roughly $31,000, a spokesman said Thursday.

Reports of the purchase, which HUD officials said was made without Carson’s knowledge, came on the heels of allegations by a HUD employee that she was demoted after she refused to bankroll a costly remodeling of Carson’s office, which she said came at Carson’s wife’s request.



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Ben Carson Defends Purchase of New $31,000 Dining Set: ‘The dining room table was actually dangerous’

Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson said Tuesday that the purchase of a $31,000 dining set for his office was made for safety reasons and after consultation with his wife, Candy Carson.

Testifying during an appearance on Capitol Hill after weeks of scrutiny over the furniture set — a mahogany dining table, chairs and a hutch for private lunches with guests — Carson called the decision to replace the existing set with the new one a “facilities” issue and not a decorating one because of concerns about the old set.

“It’s my understanding that the facilities people felt that the dining room table was actually dangerous,” he told a House Appropriations subcommittee. “People are being stuck by nails, a chair collapsed with somebody sitting in it, it’s 50 years old.”

The table episode has drawn scrutiny from Congress because of its price tag, as well as complaints that a career HUD official was demoted in retaliation for expressing concern about the office expenses and how to comply with open-records laws, which require notifying the House and Senate Appropriations Committees for decorating expenditures of more than $5,000.

Carson answered questions about the notification requirement by pointing back to the supposed safety issues of the previous table, making it a “facilities issue not a decorating issue.”

“I don’t think there is a notification required for facilities issues as there is for decorating issues,” he said.
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Sure, Ben. Sure.