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.
