The following article by John T. Bennet was posted on the Roll Call website September 29, 2017:
‘I certainly don’t like the optics,’ president said Friday
Updated at 5:33 p.m. | Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned Friday afternoon amid a scandal stemming from his use of taxpayer funds for private charter flights, according to the White House press secretary.
Price reportedly spent as much as $400,000 of taxpayer monies on chartered flights, including one to the tune of $25,000 to fly between Washington and Philadelphia.
In his resignation letter, released via email late Friday afternoon by the White House, Price praised Trump, writing that “under your leadership, the department is working aggressivelt to improve the health and well-being of all Americans.” He alluded to a still-incomplete effort to pass a health overhaul law that Price wrote would “reform a broken heath care system” and “empower patients.”
But Price wrote that he opted to step down because “recent events have created a distraction from these important objectives,” telling Trump the move is necessary “in order for you to move forward without further disruption.”
Don J. Wright will serve as acting secretary effective at 11:59 p.m. Friday.
Trump has let his frustration with Price show publicly in recent days.
“He’s a very fine man. I certainly don’t like the optics,” Trump told reporters Friday as he left the White House for another weekend at his Bedminster, N.J., resort. “I’m not happy, I can tell you that. I’m not happy.”
Trump selected Price for the job in large part to help design a plan that would repeal and replace Barack Obama’s 2010 health law. Price had been the House Budget Committee chairman, viewed by the president as just the kind of individual that could negotiate with House and Senate Republicans to achieve that major campaign promise.
Price, however, had not delivered a bill to the president for his signature.
View the post here.