In a normal administration, right about now, we’d be talking about how much longer Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will be in office before being forced to resign.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin inquired about the use of a military plane for his European honeymoon last month, the Treasury Department confirmed on Wednesday, a disclosure that comes as he is already under scrutiny for taking a government plane to Kentucky before viewing the Aug. 21 solar eclipse.
The Treasury Department said Mr. Mnuchin had asked about the military plane so that he would have access to secure communications when he was abroad.
As it turns out, officials at Treasury identified an “alternative way to communicate about government matters securely,” and Mnuchin, a multi-millionaire, did not make use of a government jet for his honeymoon.
But the fact that he tried seems politically problematic. Let’s not forget what forced John Sununu to resign from George H.W. Bush’s White House in 1991.
This news comes on the heels of a related controversy in which Mnuchin and his wife flew on a government plane to Kentucky on the day of the solar eclipse. Though the Treasury secretary later said he’d reimburse taxpayers for the cost of the excursion, the cabinet department’s inspector general is reportedly examining what transpired.
It’s the same trip in which Mnuchin’s wife caused a controversy by lashing out at a random critic on Instagram. Louise Linton, at the time, mocked the idea that the government “paid for our honeymoon.”
Apparently she didn’t know about her husband’s request for use of a government jet.
In case anyone’s forgotten, let’s also not forget that Trump’s hand-picked Treasury secretary, a Goldman Sachs veteran who started his own hedge fund, ran a “foreclosure machine” before joining the president’s cabinet. As Rachel explained on the show last year, Mnuchin is perhaps best known for being one of the most villainous vultures of the 2008 financial collapse — up to and including having protesters find out where he lived and marching to his $26 million mansion, pleading with him not to foreclose on them as he made billions off their misery.
Mnuchin is currently helping oversee negotiations on overhaul the federal tax code. What could possibly go wrong?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."