Thread by @THECITYNY

1/ #BREAKING: HUD regional director @LynnePatton could be in hot water after she skipped out of a conference for top housing agency administrators to show up at former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s congressional hearing this week, @THECITYNY’s @gregsmithnyc has learned.

2/ @LynnePatton's controversial appearance to try to undermine Cohen’s claims that @realDonaldTrump has made racist statements has now been referred to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

3/ @LynnePatton was a longtime Trump family event planner and is one of a small number of Trump appointees who is African American. She was appointed regional administrator of the New York-New Jersey office of HUD, which oversees @NYCHA and other area public housing agencies.

4/ On Wednesday, she appeared at Cohen’s hearing at the invitation of @repmarkmeadows, who at one point grilled the former Trump lawyer on his claims that the president has made numerous racist statements.

5/ With @LynnePatton standing behind him, at times nodding in agreement, @repmarkmeadows contested Cohen’s description of Trump as biased and insisted that Patton disputed that assessment. He quoted her as saying she would never work for anyone who was racist.

6/ To attend that hearing, however, @LynnePatton had to play hooky from the day’s sessions of a conference for all HUD regional administrators, which she’d been attending since Monday.

7/ On Thursday, a spokesman for HUD’s Inspector General said the office was in the process of “ascertaining all of the related facts” of her appearance before the committee & “has taken the additional step to refer this matter to the Office of Special Counsel for their review.”

8/ Among other activities, the Office of Special Counsel investigates violations of the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from using government resources for political purposes.

9/ All HUD senior administrators from across the nation were supposed to attend the Monday-through-Wednesday conference in Washington, D.C. to get updates on HUD policies, review HUD @secretarycarson’s priorities and report on the work taking place in their respective regions.

10/ Olga Alvarez, a spokeswoman for @LynnePatton, confirmed that Patton had attended the sessions on Monday and Tuesday but then took a personal leave on Wednesday to attend the Cohen hearing.

11/ Patton didn’t stop there. On Thursday, she took to TV’s @foxandfriends and to social media to state her case.

instagram.com/p/BuaSVpeHcZL/

nypost.com/2019/02/28/lyn…

12/ In 2017, Patton was put in charge of the nation’s biggest HUD regional office, despite having zero background in housing but plenty of experience arranging events for Trump Foundation celebrity golf outings and for Trump’s son @EricTrump, including his wedding.

13/ Over the last two weeks, she has moved into @NYCHA public housing apartments to bring attention to squalid conditions there.

ny1.com/nyc/bronx/news…

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15/ @LynnePatton's response to @THECITYNY:

https://twitter.com/LynnePatton/status/1101259069028007937