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Ben Carson Tries To Cancel $31,000 Dining Furniture Purchase For HUD Office

<p>Ben Carson is the latest Trump administration official to face questions about spending issues&period; He’s in some serious hot water over allegations of lavish spending on his office decor as the Trump administration proposes massive budget cuts&comma; according to Business Insider&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>According to the site&comma; problems arose when Carson’s team said they were trying to cancel an order for a &dollar;31&comma;000 mahogany dinning set to replace the 50-year-old table that’s currently on his office&period; Carson’s manager&comma; Armstrong Williams&comma; told the New York Post that canceling the order &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;might not be possible&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&&num;8220&semi;HUD is a bureaucracy&comma; so everything is complicated&period; The person they contracted has already spent &dollar;14&comma;000 making the table&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Williams said&period; &&num;8220&semi;While his intentions are to cancel it&comma; we have to see what happens&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Carson claims that he knew nothing about the hefty &dollar;31&comma;000 dinning set order&comma; and told CNN that his office would find a different route for replacing the furniture&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;I was as surprised as anyone to find out that a &dollar;31&comma;000 dining set had been ordered&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Carson said&period; &&num;8220&semi;I made it known that I was not happy about the prices being charged and that my preference would be to find something more reasonable&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Carson’s spending caught the eye of former top HUD official&comma; Helen Foster&comma; who filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel over the lavish expenses&period; What’s interesting about this is that Helen is alleging that Carson’s wife pressured her to find a loophole around the &dollar;5&comma;000 limit for office decor&comma; then went off on her when she told her no&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Helen said Carson’s wife said that &&num;8220&semi;&dollar;5&comma;000 will not even buy a decent chair&&num;8221&semi; and &&num;8220&semi;we have to find the money&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>HUD spokesman Raffi Williams claims that Helen wasn’t pressured by Carson’s wife and she was reassigned as part of an agency reshuffle&comma; not out of retaliation&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Helen’s claims were enough for the House Oversight Committee to launch an investigation&period; Rep&period; Trey Gowdy&comma; the committee chairman&comma; sent Carson&&num;8217&semi;s staff a letter on Wednesday informaing them that they will need to send documents on office furnishings since the beginning of 2017 and an explanation for the &dollar;31&comma;000 purchase&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Ben maintains he did nothing wrong&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Thank you to so many who have expressed concern for me and my family over the latest accusations&comma;&&num;8221&semi; Carson on the Twitter account he shares with his wife Candy Carson&period; &&num;8220&semi;All the numbers and evidence are being gathered and a full disclosure is forthcoming&period;&&num;8221&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine; <div class&equals;"wpra-reactions-wrap wpra-plugin-container" style&equals;"justify-content&colon; center&semi;&semi;"> <div class&equals;"wpra-reactions-container" data-ver&equals;"1&period;3&period;10" data-post&lowbar;id&equals;"35791" data-show&lowbar;count&equals;"true" data-enable&lowbar;share&equals;"onclick" data-behavior&equals;"regular" data-animation&equals;"true" data-share&lowbar;url&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;dev&period;theshaderoom&period;com&sol;ben-carson-tries-cancel-31000-dining-furniture-purchase-hud-office&sol;" data-secure&equals;"0ff7a3bbcb"> <div class&equals;"wpra-call-to-action" style&equals;"color&colon; 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