Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus is demanding embattled Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) either come clean on dozens of allegedly improperly billed private charter flights or reimburse taxpayers for hundreds of thousands of dollars she spent on private jets at taxpayer expense.
Priebus said Landrieu should “either reimburse taxpayers for every penny of the $300,000 she’s charged them for air travel from 2002 to March of 2014… [or] open all of her records up to the public” in an exclusive statement to Breitbart News.
Priebus noted such action was required since “Senator Landrieu’s report [released on Friday] doesn’t provide any documentation to support its findings.”
As Breitbart News reported on Saturday, the spreadsheet produced by Senator Landrieu on Friday, which she referred to as a “full report,” provided no documentation to support the pro-rated allocation between her campaign and the taxpayers of the $298,883 she spent on “mixed-purpose” charter flights she took between 2002 and 2014.
The $298,883 spent on these flights was far beyond the $33,727 check her campaign says they sent to the U.S. Treasury on Friday, September 12, 2014. The burden of proof to demonstrate the purpose of the flights is on Senator Landrieu.
Landrieu also noted on Friday that the total amount spent by taxpayers on her charter flights between 2002 and 2014 was $500,000. Of this, nearly $300,000 ($298,883) was spent on “mixed-purpose” flights and $202,330 was spent on flights that she claimed were only for official business.
Priebus contested Landrieu’s earlier claim that the failure to properly account for the $33,727 of charter flights taken to campaign events and initially paid for by the taxpayers was merely “sloppy bookkeeping.”
“Inappropriately billing taxpayers for 43 flights is not sloppy bookkeeping,” Priebus told Breitbart News, “but evidence of a clear contempt for hardworking Louisiana taxpayers and it’s a breach of the public trust.”
Priebus also hit Landrieu for failing to release her travel records from 1997 to 2002 during her first term in the Senate. “The fact Senator Landrieu still has not released all 17 years’ worth of travel records like she promised indicates she still has more illicit flights to hide and isn’t interested in being straightforward with voters,” Priebus told Breitbart News. “This lack of transparency merits a fuller investigation by the relevant authorities into her travel records, so a complete accounting of her office’s misuse of taxpayer funds can be documented and the appropriate course of action can be taken.”