As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hits the road to give the Republican Party a boost ahead of the midterm elections this fall, his chosen methods of transportation are raising eyebrows.
A Washington Post report published late Thursday found that Kennedy was granted access to private military aircraft as he travels across the U.S. One such instance, two officials told the outlet, took place Aug. 17, when Kennedy boarded an Air Force-operated Gulfstream jet to fly from Washington, D.C., to Des Moines, Iowa, to attend an event with GOP Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.
The Defense Department charges about $9,000 an hour for the use of the Gulfstream jet, when a commercial flight traveling the same distance as Kennedy did that day would cost about $250 for a federal employee.
The White House, as well as lawyers for the Department of Health and Human Services, signed off on the flight arrangements, five people told The Washington Post.
Kennedy’s military aircraft use is described as “infrequent,” while officials emphasized that the secretary has flown on commercial jets for many of his trips. As the report points out, however, the claims regarding Kennedy’s travel are indicative of how Trump has “been more permissive with some Cabinet officials’ travel” in his second term.
During Trump’s first term, former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned amid fallout over his use of private jets. Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke were also hit with similar controversies, prompting the White House to set new restrictions on Cabinet officials’ use of private jets.
Kennedy, meanwhile, joins a growing list of current Trump officials to draw scrutiny with regard to travel-related requests in recent weeks.
A member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), and and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who is the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced in July that they’d launched an investigation into FBI Director Kash Patel’s reported use of public resources for private jets and other travel perks.
That same month, Secret Service supervisors tasked with protecting Vice President JD Vance described many of his requests ― such as the use of a government helicopter to transport him and one of his young sons to a golf lesson ― as “inappropriate or even unprecedented” in an interview with MS NOW.
Vance’s office responded to the outlet’s report in a statement, which read in part: “While protecting a Vice President with a large policy portfolio and a young and growing family presents a unique challenge, agents of the Secret Service do so with excellence every day.”