Thread by @weareoversight

In the weeks before the 2020 election, Chad Wolf — then acting secretary of DHS — traveled to swing states to tout Trump’s policies. Records we obtained, reported on by @TIME, show the use of government planes for these trips cost taxpayers $221,340.
time.com/6146191/chad-w…

Wolf’s trips to states including Florida, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Texas cost taxpayers a total of $223,652.

These trips were part of a number of problematic and politicized trips prior to the 2020 election by top Trump administration officials, who traveled across the country to promote Trump’s policies.

“It was a very systematic and conscious decision to send people out to swing states to advocate for the reelection of the president,” @NoahBookbinder told TIME, “using the resources of the government to keep [him] in power."

According to a report released by the Office of Special Counsel in November, Wolf and 12 other senior Trump administration officials violated the Hatch Act in activities around the 2020 Republican National Convention.
osc.gov/Documents/Hatc…

“In the past we all just trusted that our democratically elected presidents would follow along with the rules and norms, and now we’ve learned that they won’t necessarily, that maybe there need to be some stronger penalties,” says our @misloan2.

Previously, we obtained records that showed Chad Wolf’s controversial trip to Portland, Ore., in the summer of 2020, where he criticized racial justice protests, cost taxpayers $86,394.
americanoversight.org/steep-price-ta…

Records we previously obtained also showed that trips to swing states ahead of the 2020 election by former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler and former Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia cost taxpayers nearly $60,000 in staff travel and expenses.
americanoversight.org/records-show-n…