May 23, 2007 — CNN’s Drew Griffin slammed Democratic congressmen on "Anderson Cooper 360" Tuesday for spending money to tour the Virgin Islands and Central America last month.
This April’s Virgin Islands junket of the House Homeland Security Committee was the first of several Griffin highlighted on the television show as examples of wasteful, self-indulgent spending by the representatives. Griffin termed the four-day, four-country trip a “boondoggle,” objecting to the cost and the tropical destinations. Cooper set a tone of outrage in his introduction to Griffin’s segment.
“If you think you’re only getting hit at the pump, well, you're wrong,” Griffin said. “You're also paying to send lawmakers, the people you elect, to places like Key West and the Virgin Islands, all in the name of — get this — national security. Your tax dollars jetting congressmen to beach resorts. For them, it is the only way to fly.”
Delegate Donna M. Christensen is a member of the committee and accompanied the delegation. At the time, Mississippi Congressman Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the committee, described the trip as a fact-finding mission to see what is working and what needs work when it comes to security in the Caribbean. (See "Delegate Christensen, Committee Members Survey Regional State of Homeland Security.")
Called for comment after business hours, Christensen’s office did not return the call by press time.
Congress’s policy on member trips of this sort requires at least five members of Congress, with some from both parties. The other trips Griffin lumped in with the Committee on Homeland Security’s trip to the Virgin Islands and Central America had no Republicans, and either the minimum or less than the minimum number of congressmen. In contrast, the Homeland Security Committee trip had nine members of congress from both parties.
Griffin heaped scorn on the elected officials for the cost of flying the delegation.
“As for Congressman Bennie Thompson and his Caribbean trip, at an estimated 13 hours flight time, the cost was $130,000 just to fly,” Griffin said. “This looks like a first-class boondoggle, with some information peppered in.”
Thompson defended the trip’s cost, saying it was due to the size, speed and complexity of the trip.
“Well, if you look at the time that we actually spent in each area, given the fact that we spent less than 24 hours in any community, it would have been utterly impossible to do that trip commercially and logistically,” Thompson said.
Griffin repeatedly referred to the trips as “spring break” and the delegations as “spring breakers.” He questioned Thompson on the decision to stay at the luxurious Caneel Bay Resort on St. John.
“That beautiful resort — was Caneel Bay, was that stop a mistake?” Griffin asked.
“Well, if it were not the only place available to stay, you could have justification that we could have" stayed elsewhere, Thompson said. “But if it’s the only hotel on the island that had a vacancy, it could not be a mistake.”
Anti-tax crusader John Berthoud, president of the National Taxpayers Union, joined Griffin in condemning congressional fact-finding trips.
“You have taxpayers being forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars for these overpriced junkets,” Berthoud said.
As the segment proceeded, Griffin conceded there was no policy violation or impropriety in the case of the Homeland Security Committee trip that included a stop in the territory, ultimately faulting it for being to a tropical resort and for costing more than commercial travel.
Back Talk Share your reaction to this news with other Source readers. Please include headline, your name and city and state/country or island where you reside.
