We still have no idea where Hillary's missing 30,000 emails are but, thanks to the intense investigation of one very concerned Washington D.C. watch dog group, we now know exactly where Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his bombshell wife were standing the moment the moon passed in front of the sun earlier this week.
Per the Washington Post, Mnuchin and wife viewed the eclipse from the roof of Fort Knox and not from the comfort of a government plane:
It turns out that Mnuchin did view the eclipse while he was in Kentucky, and from an extraordinary place: Just outside the path of totality, from the roof of the nation’s fabled Fort Knox, atop nearly $200 billion in American gold.
But Treasury officials said Thursday that the trip was planned explicitly around “official government travel,” rejecting the idea that the Fort Knox visit and the appearance at a luncheon for the local chamber of commerce were mere cover. They said the luncheon appearance had been planned for early August but was delayed when McConnell postponed the Senate’s recess, an account confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Louisville chamber, Alison Brotzge-Elder.
Thank God we got to the bottom of that...we're just not sure the country could have survived a scandal of this magnitude.
Of course, the 'eclipsegate' scandal blew up earlier this week when Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) filed a FOIA request for all of Steve Mnuchin's travel records alleging that he and Linton planned their usage of a government plane around this week's eclipse to get a better view from the sky.
Per CREW's website, the FOIA request sought the following:
CREW requests:
1. copies of all records concerning authorization for and the costs of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s use of a government plane to travel to Lexington, Kentucky on Monday, August 21, accompanied by his wife Louise Linton.
2. copies of all records concerning authorization for and the costs of Secretary Mnuchin’s use of a government plane for any purpose since his appointment as Treasury Secretary.
On August 21, 2017, Secretary Mnuchin and his wife Louise Linton travelled to Lexington, Kentucky, purportedly for the Secretary to present remarks along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at a luncheon sponsored by the Louisville chamber of commerce, Greater Louisville Inc. Afterward, Secretary Mnuchin and his wife “headed to Fort Know…to tour the bullion reserve at the Army post and view the eclipse.”
The requested records would shed light on the justification for Secretary Mnuchin’s use of a government plane, rather than a commercial flight, for a trip that seems to have been planned around the solar eclipse and to enable the Secretary to secure a viewpoint in the path of the eclipse’s totality. At a time of expected deep cuts to the federal budget, the taxpayers have a significant interest in learning the extent to which Secretary Mnuchin has used government planes for travel in lieu of commercial planes, and the justification for that use.
Of course, they could have just avoided this whole hassle by taking a look at Mitch McConnell's Facebook page, but that wouldn't have been as dramatic, right?
http://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php
We sincerely hope that Louise Linton has learned her lesson from all this...wit, humor and snark have no place on social media...at least not for Republicans serving the Trump administration.
* * *
For those who missed it, below is our post from earlier this week on Linton's Instagram rant...complete with our thorough 'research' on her career 'accomplishments.'
As was always likely, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin's wife Louise Linton has been forced to apologize for her Marie Antionette moment... A short and to the point statement read...
"I apologize for my post on social media yesterday as well as my response. It was inappropriate and highly insensitive."
We are sure that will satiate the twitter hordes that just got confirmation of everything they believed about 'the elites'.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin's 36-year-old (he's 52 btw) trophy wife Louise Linton has landed herself in a bit of hot water this morning after an epic social media rant against a taxpayer who took issue with one of her Instagram posts.
Apparently @jennimiller29 didn't appreciate Linton hastagging her entire expensive wardrobe (including #rolandmouret, #tomford, #hermesscarf, and #valnetinorockstudheels) while traveling on a taxpayer funded private plane, during her husband's trip to "check" if the gold at Fort Knox is still there, which prompted the following snarky comment:
"Glad we could pay for your little getaway."
Let them eat cake: 2017 in your face editionhttps://t.co/jcTc4UqkK3 pic.twitter.com/KbkcF47bnJ
— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) August 22, 2017
And while most folks have learned to simply ignore the social media trolls, Linton apparently has not...which is great news for everyone else because it prompted the following epic rant in reply:
“Cute! Aw!!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable! Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country? I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours. You’re adorably out of touch. Thanks for the passive aggressive nasty comment. Your kids look very cute. Your life looks cute. I know you’re mad but deep down you’re really nice and so am I. Sending me passive aggressive Instagram comments isn’t going to make life feel better. Maybe a nice message [sic], one filled with wisdom and hunanity [sic] would get more traction. Have a pleasant evening. Go chill out and watch the new game of thrones. It’s fab!”
Louise Linton, wife of US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, just turned her Instagram private after posting this (h/t @skenigsberg) pic.twitter.com/beakVnAhhu
— Margarita Noriega (@margarita) August 22, 2017
Others quickly chimed in: “Quite the populist hashtags on Louise Linton’s Instagram (Mnuchin’s wife), following her taxpayer-funded day trip to Kentucky,” joked Matt McDermott, a pollster and Associate Director at Whitman Insight Strategies.
“Curiously this Instagram post is no longer available. F–king hedge funders,” wrote one Twitter user. “Louise Linton is a hideous person, growing fat off of our tax dollars,” another said.
At one point during the evening, someone even went so far as to change Linton’s Wikipedia page to reflect her IG comment. “Never forget she posted this on Instagram,” the page read as of 10:30 p.m.
Alas, in the end, it seems that only the President is permitted to post outlandish social media rants as Linton's post has since been deleted and her account turned private.
Finally, since we know this is the only reason you clicked on this post anyway...here you go:
Link for Linton's Maxim photoshoot