In order to “facilitate safe passage” while boating on Ohio’s Little Miami River for his birthday, J.D. Vance‘s Secret Service detail directed Army Corps of Engineers to raise water levels. As The Guardian‘s Stephanie Kirchgaessner and David Smith reported, those types of “special releases” are typically reserved for emergency-responder training or large, community events.
JD Vance’s team had the army corps of engineers take the unusual step of changing the outflow of a lake in Ohio to accommodate a recent boating excursion on a family holiday. The request from Secret Service was made to ‘support safe navigation’ of Vance’s security detail for an August outing on the Little Miami River, according to a statement by the US army corps of engineers (USACE). Vance was spotted in the south-western Ohio area on 2 August, his 41st birthday, according to social media posts that noted he was seen canoeing on the river, a tributary that Caesar Creek Lake feeds into.
via Stephanie Kirchgaessner and David Smith for The Guardian
The Guardian also noted that making a single person’s family more comfortable during birthday festivities is a dramatic contrast to Vance and Donald Trump slashing all sorts of funds, jobs and programs Americans count on (some of those actions being wildly illegal) while calling it “government” “efficiency.”
The news raises questions about whether Vance’s office was potentially exploiting public infrastructure resources for his personal recreation at a time when the Trump administration has cut billions of dollars in foreign aid, scientific research and government jobs as part of its “efficiency” drive.
via Stephanie Kirchgaessner and David Smith for The Guardian
Reached for comment about the matter, Richard Painter, ethics attorney who served in the George W. Bush Administration, said it was “pretty outrageous” for Vance to receive special treatment—particularly given dramatic cuts to the National Parks Conservation Association. Those cuts have caused certain park areas to be closed to the public due to lack of staff.
“Those cuts are directly impacting middle-class families’ vacations,” Painter said. “Whether they are doing it for the Secret Service or for him I think is splitting hairs. What he ought to be doing is choosing another place.”
In July, Vance broke a tie in the Senate to push Trump’s big, bloated bill over the finish line, which would kick millions off health insurance and give huge tax breaks for the wealthy.
AUTHOR FOOTNOTE
If your chosen family holiday involves wasting enormous amounts of water and money to facilitate kayaking or canoeing or whatever the heck the Vance clan did, just go on a hike instead.
In other words, yes, the same fella who routinely whines about “Hollywood elites” and “entitled liberals” is, himself, a full-fledged diva.
Vance, as it turns out, is more fond of fancy vacations than he is doing, ya know, work. According to reports, he’s far ahead of Kamala Harris in terms of days off at similar points in the same role.
The team at TrumpFile did quite a bit of reporting/warning about Vance last year, who is neither a legitimate entrepreneur nor does he remotely resemble the “hillbilly” from “Appalachia” character falsely portrayed in his memoir.
What this story does is drive home the point that anyone bankrolled or inspired by billionaire Pete Thiel is likely going to display flashes of insufferable, narcissistic behavior traits and petulant demands.
Last point: this is not the first time (and likely won’t be the last) Trump and/or Vance exploited Army Corps. In January, Donald ordered release of billions of gallons of water into the San Joaquin valley in order to “prevent” “wildfires.” The action had no impact on the stated problem, and it wasted a bunch of precious resources in the process.
Sounds a lot like “waste, fraud and abuse” to me.
