Yes, Ben Carson is Still in Trump’s Cabinet. And Congressional Probes Could Be Coming His Way.
Zach Gibson/AP
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After his 2016 presidential bid failed, Ben Carson acknowledged he didn’t have enough experience to run a federal agency. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Nonetheless, after he became president, Donald Trump tweeted that the famous retired neurosurgeon might be his nominee to run HUD, the $41 billion agency with more than 9,000 employees that oversees housing and urban issues, including maintaining public housing, insuring mortgages, and enforcing fair housing laws.
I am seriously considering Dr. Ben Carson as the head of HUD. I’ve gotten to know him well–he’s a greatly talented person who loves people!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
For Trump, Carson’s greatest qualifications may have been that he is black and has a heartwarming story about growing up poor with a struggling mother in Detroit. Within four months of his tweet, Carson was confirmed as HUD secretary in March 2017.
An unusually large number of scandals and turnover in the White House has characterized the first two years of the Trump administration. Remember when Tom Price was the head of Health and Human Services? He resigned after just seven months on the job when Politico reported that the former Georgia representative had been using tax-payer money to fund trips on private jets. There were many other examples of scandalous behavior by the EPA chief Scott Pruitt, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Rob Porter, Anthony Scaramucci, and most recently, the head of the Department of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who submitted his resignation after a questionable land deal in his home town. Then there were those who resigned or were forced out, like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Chiefs of Staff John Kelly and Reince Priebus, and most recently General James Mattis who handed in his resignation after disagreeing with the president on pulling out of the war in Syria.
Through it all, Carson has flown under the radar.
That doesn’t mean he’s been entirely free from scandal. In early 2018, the New York Times reported that his office had spent $31,000 on a new dining set. Federal law requires that departments get congressional approval for office redecorating that exceeds $5,000, which no one at HUD did. But, that was a rare moment when the HUD secretary was in the news at all—and that includes for his work at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“As Scott Pruitt and Ryan Zinke’s outlandish corruption has filled the headlines, Ben Carson has largely avoided the spotlight,” Austin Evers, the executive director of ethics watchdog group American Oversight told Mother Jones in an emailed statement. “He’s so far been able to escape serious consequences for the nepotism and incompetence that he’s allowed to run rampant at his agency, but with a Congress that’s intent on conducting oversight, that’s probably going to change.”
Here are a five places where they could start:
1) Too Much Family Involvement
In the summer of 2017, Ben Carson’s son, Ben Carson Jr., may have run afoul of some federal ethics laws when he and his wife Merlynn Carson invited their business associates to a HUD “listening tour” in Baltimore. Carson Jr., the co-founder of a private equity firm and the chairman of a construction and engineering services company, connected his guests with HUD officials, joined HUD staff on conference calls about the tour, and copied his wife on email exchanges about the listening tour. According to the Washington Post, department lawyers tried to warn the Secretary of HUD that this shouldn’t happen. “I expressed my concern that this gave the appearance that the Secretary may be using his position for his son’s private gain,” Linda M. Cruciani, HUD’s deputy general counsel for operations, wrote in a memo. Carson responded by saying his son and daughter-in-law did nothing wrong, and he would have the agency’s inspector general look into it.
This week, my family and I have been under attack by the media questioning our integrity and ethics. I have openly asked for an Independent Investigation to put to rest these unfounded biases. Exodus 14:14
— Ben & Candy Carson (@RealBenCarson) February 2, 2018
His wife, Candy Carson, who has written several books, one entitled A Doctor in the House; My Life With Ben Carson, has also been involved in official HUD activity and attended official meetings throughout Carson’s tenure as secretary.
2) What are friends for?
The HUD secretary has also come under fire for appointing close friends to positions they may not be qualified for. For example, in May, Carson announced that 29-year-old Alfonso Costa Jr., would be joining HUD as deputy chief of staff in the office of the secretary. Costa’s father, Alfonso Costa Sr. is Carson’s best friend, a dentist and real estate investor who was convicted in 2015 for defrauding insurers of nearly $45,000. As Mother Jones reported, Carson stood with Castro Sr. and said he was “proud to call him my friend.”
3) Armstrong Williams Is Still Around
Armstrong Williams, the conservative commentator and television station owner, has been a Carson booster since his stint as the retired neurosurgeon’s presidential campaign adviser, Williams has been embroiled in several scandals over the years, including claims of sexual harassment leveled at him, and his failure to disclose that he was paid to promote George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act on his radio show and syndicated columns in the 2000’s. During the furniture set fiasco, Williams released an official statement to CNN from Carson that said the secretary was unaware of the dining set purchase. This was framed as an official response from the head of HUD, even though Williams is not an employee. He may not work there, but Williams is often at the agency, leading to questions about his precise role there. In August, he wrote an op-ed in The Hill, countering allegations in an Associated Press report that Baltimore, where Carson made a name for himself, is just not that into him anymore. His byline identified him as a former adviser and spokesman for Carson’s presidential campaign.
4) Opportunity Zones
One part of the Trump tax plan involved giving tax breaks to businesses and developers willing to invest in underserved communities, in projects that were called “Opportunity Zones.” The zones will be designated by the Treasury Department, but Trump named Carson the chairman of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council that will oversee the implementation of the plan. Earlier this month, Ben Carson announced that by using “a powerful new incentive promoting private investment in distressed communities,” he planned to target some areas as “opportunity zones” where those investments could be funneled. But critics of the program have noticed that some of the zones that have received the designation are actually located in expensive neighborhoods in New York City and South Florida. According to NBC News, President Trump’s New Jersey golf course is inside an Opportunity Zone, while Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and adviser, owns properties in two Maryland Opportunity Zones, and could benefit from the program. “Unless the Treasury Department quickly establishes regulatory guardrails,” Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition said, “there is no guarantee that low-income people will benefit in any significant way, if at all, from opportunity zones.”
5) Demoting a Whistleblower
When Carson tried to spend five figures on a new dining set, Helen Foster was the chief administrative officer at HUD. According to the Washington Post, she had felt pressured to buy the expensive furniture set, so she lodged a complaint to her superiors in the agency. The ethics watchdog group American Oversight obtained emails Foster sent to her colleagues saying she was being subjected to “endless” questions about why she wouldn’t spend the money for the dining set. In an explosive resignation letter, Foster says HUD officials retaliated by demoting her to a simple clerical position with no real duties and was made out to be a liar. Addressing Secretary Carson and his deputy Pam Patenaude (who resigned on Monday), Foster says that their staffers “lied to you, lied to the public, knowingly violated the law, and illegally punished me for doing my job for over a year.” Foster also alleged that a HUD official opened up a “specious management investigation” of a hostile work environment against her because of a reference to Game of Thrones in an email.
When asked about the situation at a testimony in March, Ben Carson said he did not retaliate against anyone. “Let me just say, I don’t know who this whistleblower is, all of that is news to me,” Carson said in response to a question from Rep. David Price (D-N.C.). “I would never be involved in repercussions to people like that.” The federal government has strong laws to protect workers from retaliation when they report issues.
