U.S. Report Faults Christie, as Prosecutor, on Hotel Stays

[SamH]

As far as I know, the report was on excessive expense spending by US attorneys.

.

Seems strange that a report like this is suddenly generated and distributed by the Justice Department. Their marked concern over $2100 seems out of line given the fact that the current AG is wasting $11 million so $400 million more can be spent.

Do you any stories on misplaced priorities?

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

Hmmmmm. Thought hearsay on hearsay was when one testimony source is quoting another who is quoting yet another.

You happen to be wrong. If you read the cited articles, they quote directly from the IG’s report. This thread is on what the Inspector General found and how the NJ governor has not addressed those findings.

That’s not hearsay.

Seems strange that a report like this is suddenly generated and distributed by the Justice Department.

I guess it would be stranger if it was disseminated before an election, focused on someone running for office or only involved $2k or so in excessive spending.

But that’s not the case.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You happen to be wrong. If you read the cited articles, they quote directly from the IG’s report. This thread is on what the Inspector General found and how the NJ governor has not addressed those findings.

That’s not hearsay.

Just asked a lawyer friend. Your presentation of the article here is hearsay. The article’s quotation of another source is also hearsay. Therefore, hearsay on hearsay.

Of course, every article ever cited here is necessarily hearsay, and that’s acceptable. But one ought to be free to be at least dubious when the article cited is, itself, a partisan utterance purporting to interpret information without providing the entirety of the information.

Is this one of those cost overruns that happen with expense accounts many times daily and is more or less routine, or does it represent something criminal, sinister or even minimally improvident? That’s the real question. The case isn’t made just by saying that it does.

I guess we’ll really know as it all develops.

 

[SamH]

I guess it would be stranger if it was disseminated before an election, focused on someone running for office or only involved $2k or so in excessive spending.

But that’s not the case.

So there will be no election in 2012 - do you have inside information?

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

So there will be no election in 2012 - do you have inside information?

Who has announced for 2012? I don’t think many would consider today part of the campaign season.

 

[SamH]

Who has announced for 2012? I don’t think many would consider today part of the campaign season.

Doesn’t matter, the mud slinging campaign has already started for any potential contenders.

abcnews.go.com/Politics/exclusive-democrats-pentagon-information-potential-obama-challengers/story?id=11985974&page=2

According to the memo, the DNC’s request asks for “Any and all records of communication (including but not limited to letters, written requests, reports, telephone records, electronic communication, complaints, investigations, violation and memos) between your department (and all divisions and agencies under your jurisdiction).”

The DNC also asks for copies of other Freedom of Information requests that mention the nine individuals that Democrats want information on.

Good to see that you are using the play book.

 

[Nordar]

I heard that on the news , what was funny was the look on both Anchors faces, It was as if they were saying " are they serious?" they were just speachless. What an absolute waste of time and money!

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

I heard that on the news , what was funny was the look on both Anchors faces, It was as if they were saying " are they serious?" they were just speachless. What an absolute waste of time and money!

I agree. He should have just taken a cab. $236 is ridiculous.

 

[bbarrick8383]

I agree. He should have just taken a cab. $236 is ridiculous.

You were talking about how stupid it was of a politician to rip a poster off a wall in Chicago and how much it cost the taxpayers.

This is getting up there with that. But the stupidity is anyone who wastes their time and taxpayer money digging around for a political stunt to try and paint a Republican governor in a bad color because the Democrats got their @$$es handed to them in this last election in a lot of the state offices previously held by democrats.

Had they waited a year or so, this might not seem so suspicious. But right after the election? They are digging whatever dirt they can find and in this case the spec is so small it’s not worth getting the vacuum out.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

This is getting up there with that. But the stupidity is anyone who wastes their time and taxpayer money digging around for a political stunt to try and paint a Republican governor in a bad color …

Actually, I think this is the Inspector General of the Department of Justice actually doing his job concerning wasteful spending. The report actually was put together before the election and shows Christie, who it does not name, as the worse spendthrift. Its not the IG’s fault he caught an incumbent governor in his net.

 

[SamH]

Actually, I think this is the Inspector General of the Department of Justice actually doing his job concerning wasteful spending. .

Really? Why wait so long? Most programs are audited on an annual basis. More than three fiscal years after the fact a public release is made? Sounds like Eric was reaching deep to find anything.

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

Sounds like Eric was reaching deep to find anything.

Sure! That’s why the report does not even name Christie. Because they were trying to find something on him?

 

[RACJ]

Why should he care? Uncle Sugar was paying!

"WASHINGTON — When he was a top federal prosecutor, Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey routinely billed taxpayers for hotel stays whose cost exceeded government guidelines, according to a report the Justice Department released on Monday. The report, by the department’s inspector general, examined travel expenses for all 208 people who served as a United States attorney from 2007 to 2009. It spoke of five who “exhibited a noteworthy pattern of exceeding the government rate and whose travel documentation provided insufficient, inaccurate or no justification for the higher lodging rates.”

While the report did not identify any prosecutors by name, the travel patterns of an official called “U.S. Attorney C” — the one “who most often exceeded the government rate without adequate justification” in terms of percentage of travel — match records about Mr. Christie that were released in the 2009 campaign for governor by his Democratic opponent, the incumbent, Jon S. Corzine…

The report cited stays in the $449-per-night Nine Zero Hotel in Boston and the $475-per-night Four Seasons Hotel in Washington. Both cost more than double the government rate for those cities. In all, Mr. Christie exceeded the lodging rate on 14 of 23 trips without adequate justification, billing taxpayers $2,176 in excess of the maximum normal rates. "

nytimes.com/2010/11/09/nyregion/09christie.html

Ol’ Chris Christie would need to charge for about 10 million hotel stays to compete with just ONE Obama trip overseas. Or, about 1000 stays to equal the charge for one Obama date in Manhattan. Oh, I forgot, the Obamas are simply taking “their turn”! Face it Beau, Barack and Michelle are pompous and insufferable buffoons. Rob

 

[a_priori]

Why should he care? Uncle Sugar was paying!

These simple words are worthy of a Nobel. All of our problems can be distilled down to eight words. Perfect. In the pantheon of public servants who have received Uncle Sugar’s largesse, I think Christie is hardly worth honorable mention.

 

[JW10631]

Beau Oville:

• Republican buys bottled water instead of drinking from a water fountain.
• Republican put an empty aluminum Pepsi can in the regular trash.
• Republican let his kids watch Speed Racer DVDs instead of Barney.
• Republican ordered pizza with pepperoni when government guidelines allow only plain cheese pizza

*et cetera, et cetera, et cetera

*Rich Olszewski:
You go, guy!

There was a long discussion thread about this on HotAir.com. Beau, don’t go there. Your head would explode. It sees that the Federal Government’s hotel reimbursement rates often cover the cost of a lousy hotel in a rotten part of town and anyplace else exceeds the rates.

Christie turned in his expense reports. They were approved and reimbursement was made.

Given the fact that Christie was, well, working, while Pelosi flew cross country on military jets with a well stocked liquor cabinet, and Obama treats the White House as Party Central with all expenses paid vacations for him and the missus, I am not bothered by Christie’s actions.

$2,176 for Christie
$75,000 a day for Michelle Obama to visit Spain.

I conclude this with a quote from Bob Tyrrell, from remarks he delivered at The American Spectator’s annual dinner on November 9:

Now President Obama has fled the country. It is too soon to say if he will return or not. Let us assume the worst. He returns. What kind of country is he returning to? Actually the same country he left. The country about which he knows very little. And Nancy Pelosi knows even less. It is a country in which American conservatism has been providing the bulk of political ideas since the 1980s. You do not run for high office in America and promise to raise taxes, not since Fritz Mondale in 1984. You do not run for office promising enormous deficits. The mainstream in this country was shaped by the Reagan Revolution. When a Liberal runs for national office he or she lies to you. When a conservative runs for office he or she has no trouble telling you honestly what he or she is going to do. It is not terribly controversial except in Massachusetts and how long that will be true is in question.

Read the entire piece here:spectator.org/archives/2010/11/12/out-of-the-wilderness

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

Folks here mix apples and oranges (stating this is a non-story while pontificating about flags on kids’ bikes): Christie was a government employee while living it up at taxpayer expense, not an elected government official. An inspector general’s report about financial abusers cites him as the worst of the lot.

This is not about any elected official and surely not about the White House denizens.

Now, after being rising to the top of the list of worst expense account abusers, Christie is ‘Mr. Cost Cutter’ in NJ? Inquiring minds wanna know.

 

[bbarrick8383]

Folks here mix apples and oranges (stating this is a non-story while pontificating about flags on kids’ bikes): Christie was a government employee while living it up at taxpayer expense, not an elected government official. An inspector general’s report about financial abusers cites him as the worst of the lot.

This is not about any elected official and surely not about the White House denizens.

Now, after being rising to the top of the list of worst expense account abusers, Christie is ‘Mr. Cost Cutter’ in NJ? Inquiring minds wanna know.

Living it up, list of worst expense account abusers…your still here?

:yawn:

 

[Beau_Ouiville]

Living it up, list of worst expense account abusers…your still here?

Well, I realize that the item is not momentous and world-changing, like how the president greets a foreign head, the pledge of allegiance in Spanish or a flag on a kid’s bike, but I thought it was timely, interesting and appropriate.

Those who disagree should perhaps avoid threads such as this one.

 

[Tom_8_0_0]

Perhaps if the tax burden were not so heavy on the taxpayers, things like this would not happen. Corzine spent all kinds of money, and no one questioned where that went. Millions of Jersey tax dollars going into Corzine’s government and never seen again… no questions asked.

I think Christie wants to make sure things like don’t happen again. Small tax burden, less corruption. Right? If there’s a smaller sum of money coming in from the taxpayers, it’s easier to see where waste, fraud, and abuse occur. I still think this is the two-faced duplicity of the left, picking on Christie for taking advantage of the disastrous tax situation which THEY themselves created.

What do you think of that?

 

[bbarrick8383]

Those who disagree should perhaps avoid threads such as this one.

Yes, well there is some interesting logic. Only post on Beaus threads if we agree with Beau. A bit boring don’t you think?