- Oct 17, 2011
- 33,109
- 36,452
- Country
- United States
- Faith
- Atheist
- Marital Status
- Legal Union (Other)
LINK
The Trump administration put up bureaucratic obstacles that stalled approximately $20 billion in hurricane relief for Puerto Rico and then obstructed an investigation into the holdup, according to an inspector general report obtained by The Washington Post.
Congress requested the investigation into the delays to recovery aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 left residents of the U.S. territory without power and clean water for months. But, the report said, former Housing and Urban Development secretary Ben Carson and another former HUD official declined to be interviewed by investigators during the course of the examination that began in 2019.
The OMB required HUD’s notice of grant funds to go through an interagency review process before approval, preventing HUD from publishing its draft notice of funding by its target date. The OMB had never before required such a review process for a notice allocating disaster-recovery funds
At one point, [HUD official] Montgomery told [OMB DIrector] Vought that the White House’s actions were tantamount to holding disaster-relief funds “hostage,” the report said.
But the inspector general said given the lack of cooperation, investigators were unable to determine why the extra layer of review was required.
Trump had also told then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and then-OMB Director Mick Mulvaney that he did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico, and instead, he wanted more of the money to go to Texas and Florida.
The Trump administration put up bureaucratic obstacles that stalled approximately $20 billion in hurricane relief for Puerto Rico and then obstructed an investigation into the holdup, according to an inspector general report obtained by The Washington Post.
Congress requested the investigation into the delays to recovery aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 left residents of the U.S. territory without power and clean water for months. But, the report said, former Housing and Urban Development secretary Ben Carson and another former HUD official declined to be interviewed by investigators during the course of the examination that began in 2019.
The OMB required HUD’s notice of grant funds to go through an interagency review process before approval, preventing HUD from publishing its draft notice of funding by its target date. The OMB had never before required such a review process for a notice allocating disaster-recovery funds
At one point, [HUD official] Montgomery told [OMB DIrector] Vought that the White House’s actions were tantamount to holding disaster-relief funds “hostage,” the report said.
But the inspector general said given the lack of cooperation, investigators were unable to determine why the extra layer of review was required.
Trump had also told then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and then-OMB Director Mick Mulvaney that he did not want a single dollar going to Puerto Rico, and instead, he wanted more of the money to go to Texas and Florida.