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Ben Carson's schedule shows Friday trips to Florida, lunch with My Pillow founder
David Fahrenthold RetweetedWhat is Ben Carson doing with his time? Meeting with the My Pillow guy, leaving the office early to jet off to his $4.3 million Florida home. Meets with senior staff just once a week. Great muckracking by @strickdc:
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For 5 Fridays out of 31, HUD Secretary Ben Carson was off or had no appointments. For 5 more he left before 2 p.m. to fly to South Florida, where he owns a mansion.
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In all my #FOIA years I have never seen a more convoluted FOIA than this one from HUD. Except for the one that listed all employees and their salaries on a printed spreadsheet in random order...from HUD.
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Exclusive from @strickdc Three different 2017 calendars from Carson's office were obtained by the watchdog group American Oversight through a federal lawsuit and provided to NBC News.
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Ben Carson's schedule shows Friday trips to Florida, lunch with My Pillow founder
For 5 Fridays out of 31, Carson was off or had no appointments. For 5 more he left before 2 p.m. to fly to South Florida, where he owns a mansion.
March 18, 2019, 4:23 AM EDT
By Laura Strickler
WASHINGTON — Ben Carson's daily schedule from 2017 shows a HUD secretary who held senior staff meetings once a week, lunched with the author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and the founder of My Pillow, and left work before 2 p.m. on some Fridays to fly to his Florida mansion.
A list of appointments for a 31-week period shows that for about half of the Fridays Carson worked a traditional eight or nine-hour day. For five of the Fridays he was off or had no appointments. For five more Fridays he left before 2 p.m. to get to the airport to fly to South Florida, where he owns a house valued at $4.3 million. For the remaining six, he had no scheduled appointments past 3 p.m. In all, he made a dozen weekend trips to South Florida during the 31 weeks.
The calendar also indicates that in 2017, HUD's senior staff huddled just once a week. Calendars previously posted by three other federal departments — Transportation, Treasury, and Labor — during the Trump administration show daily senior team meetings or multiple meetings a week. ... Three different 2017 calendars from Carson's office were obtained by the government watchdog group American Oversight through a federal lawsuit and provided to NBC News. NBC News recreated his schedule for the period covering April 7, 2017, to Nov. 1, 2017, using listings from the three calendars — one of them Carson's, the others from two of his assistants.
American Oversight filed its first Freedom of Information Act request for Carson's calendar in November 2017. When the group's request was denied, it sued HUD for the documents in March 2018. HUD then provided the three different calendars to American Oversight with months of appointments out of sequence. An example of what American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers called a "jumble" is below:
{snip}
For 5 Fridays out of 31, Carson was off or had no appointments. For 5 more he left before 2 p.m. to fly to South Florida, where he owns a mansion.
March 18, 2019, 4:23 AM EDT
By Laura Strickler
WASHINGTON — Ben Carson's daily schedule from 2017 shows a HUD secretary who held senior staff meetings once a week, lunched with the author of "Chicken Soup for the Soul" and the founder of My Pillow, and left work before 2 p.m. on some Fridays to fly to his Florida mansion.
A list of appointments for a 31-week period shows that for about half of the Fridays Carson worked a traditional eight or nine-hour day. For five of the Fridays he was off or had no appointments. For five more Fridays he left before 2 p.m. to get to the airport to fly to South Florida, where he owns a house valued at $4.3 million. For the remaining six, he had no scheduled appointments past 3 p.m. In all, he made a dozen weekend trips to South Florida during the 31 weeks.
The calendar also indicates that in 2017, HUD's senior staff huddled just once a week. Calendars previously posted by three other federal departments — Transportation, Treasury, and Labor — during the Trump administration show daily senior team meetings or multiple meetings a week. ... Three different 2017 calendars from Carson's office were obtained by the government watchdog group American Oversight through a federal lawsuit and provided to NBC News. NBC News recreated his schedule for the period covering April 7, 2017, to Nov. 1, 2017, using listings from the three calendars — one of them Carson's, the others from two of his assistants.
American Oversight filed its first Freedom of Information Act request for Carson's calendar in November 2017. When the group's request was denied, it sued HUD for the documents in March 2018. HUD then provided the three different calendars to American Oversight with months of appointments out of sequence. An example of what American Oversight Executive Director Austin Evers called a "jumble" is below:
{snip}
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