Thread by @ddiamond

NEW: How SEEMA VERMA’s team spent taxpayer money to boost her brand — from $2,933 for a networking “Girl’s night” to the $13,000-plus spent to promote her for awards and panels. politico.com/news/2020/09/1… with @adamcancryn

Verma, who serves as Trump’s Medicaid chief and is a longtime Pence ally, ultimately spent more than $3.5 million on GOP-connected consultants who wrote her tweets and op-eds and tried to set up meetings with prominent Republicans.

politico.com/news/2020/09/1…

POLITICO first revealed Verma’s extensive spending on comms and branding consultants last year, even as she publicly championed fiscal restraint and introduced policies like Medicaid work requirements and block grants.

https://twitter.com/adamcancryn/status/1111617159438966784

UPDATE: Democrats are calling on @USGAO to examine whether the administration and Verma’s use of communications consultants broke the law.

Letter: energycommerce.house.gov/sites/democrat…

Asked by @chcradio about Democrats’ report on her PR spending, Verma dismissed it as a “political attack on public servants, which we would expect previous to an election,” and suggested that a separate inspector general report had vindicated her.