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Socialist-Praising Biden Honcho Billed Luxury Travel To Taxpayers, IG Finds

Socialist-Praising Biden Honcho Billed Luxury Travel To Taxpayers, IG Finds

<p><&excl;-- BEGIN THEIA POST SLIDER --><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p> <br &sol;>&NewLine;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<div style&equals;"position&colon;relative">&NewLine;<p>Lina Khan&comma; the head of the Federal Trade Commission under former President Joe Biden and one of the administration’s most far-left members&comma; billed taxpayers for a luxury car service while barnstorming the country on the eve of the presidential election&comma; according to a inspector general probe&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As part of a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Charge Card Act review&comma;” the FTC’s inspector general <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;oig&period;ftc&period;gov&sol;sites&sol;default&sol;files&sol;reports&sol;2025-07&sol;2025-07-08&lowbar;Final&lowbar;Redacted&lowbar;Version&lowbar;FTC&percnt;20OIG&percnt;20management&percnt;20advisory&lowbar;ground&percnt;20transportation&period;pdf" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">found<&sol;a> &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;unusually high expenses for travel&comma;” including nearly &dollar;19&comma;000 for booking a private car service during 16 trips to other cities&comma; plus additional costs for using the service to get around Washington&comma; D&period;C&period; It found that Khan had used the service for &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;ease of transportation&comma;” without addressing &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;a less expensive alternative&period;” On one trip to Denver&comma; Khan spent &dollar;1&comma;128 on a private chauffeur service when she could have rented a car for &dollar;407&comma; it said&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Some of the expenses billed to taxpayers may have come as she was accused of using her government position to campaign for Democrats ahead of the November 2024 election&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>On October 2&comma; 2024&comma; <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;punchbowl&period;news&sol;article&sol;campaigns&sol;ftc-lina-khan-campaigns-with-democrats&sol;" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">Punchbowl News<&sol;a> said Khan was &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;zig-zagging” the country to appear with Democrat politicians&comma; where &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Khan’s events with lawmakers have nominal policy themes…but the timing so near the election is hard to ignore&period;” That included an event in Chicago with Rep&period; Raja Krishnamoorthi and in Wisconsin with Rep&period; Mark Pocan&period; The car service fees highlighted by the inspector general include October 2 travel in Chicago at &dollar;1&comma;021&comma; and October 3 travel in Madison&comma; Wisconsin&comma; for &dollar;2&comma;215&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The findings come as Khan&comma; who has consistently attacked the greed of large corporations and CEOs&comma; has prominently <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;nytimes&period;com&sol;2025&sol;07&sol;29&sol;opinion&sol;lina-khan-mamdani-democrats-small-business&period;html" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">boosted<&sol;a> the campaign of socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>FTC management replied to the inspector general that the spending did not violate existing rules&comma; but highlighted a need to update the agency’s policies&period; The inspector general recommended &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;enhanced requirements for the justification and documentation of these travel expenses&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan &lpar;R-OH&rpar; faulted the politically tinged trips even before the luxury car service was known about&comma; saying Khan had a pattern of playing fast and loose with rules&period; He <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;judiciary&period;house&period;gov&sol;sites&sol;evo-subsites&sol;republicans-judiciary&period;house&period;gov&sol;files&sol;evo-media-document&sol;2024-10-21&percnt;20JDJ&percnt;20Lee&percnt;20to&percnt;20Khan&percnt;20re&percnt;20Hatch&percnt;20Act&period;pdf" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">wrote<&sol;a> in October 2024 that &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Federal law and FTC ethics rules prohibit you from participating in political events&comma; and from using appropriated funds for any political activity… This concern is particularly significant given your history of ignoring agency ethics advice concerning the appearance of partiality&comma; including ignoring the advice of the agency’s Designated Agency Ethics Official&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Khan faces additional questions after she placed a Democrat political appointee into a top long-term job at the FTC in the final hours of the Biden administration&comma; essentially infiltrating the incoming Trump administration&period; Nathaniel Segal worked as Special Assistant to President Joe Biden and Deputy Advisor to Vice President Kamala Harris until January 18&comma; 2025&comma; when he was placed in a non-political FTC job after Khan personally overrode staff’s concerns&comma; three Trump officials <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;dailywire&period;com&sol;news&sol;kamala-harris-aide-under-doj-investigation-falsifying-paperwork-to-get-musk-buyout" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">previously told<&sol;a> The Daily Wire&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>As someone who had just started his job at the FTC&comma; Segal should have been on new-employee probationary status&period; But he was falsely put on the FTC’s payroll as a non-probationary employee&comma; making it harder for Trump administration officials to fire him&period; When the Trump administration fixed the error&comma; which would have made Segal worry that he would be laid off&comma; he created false&comma; backdated paperwork to try to get paid through Elon Musk’s &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Fork in the Road” buyout offer&comma; for which he was not eligible and had not actually applied&comma; according to the officials&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The Segal situation is now the subject of a criminal investigation by federal prosecutors&comma; and it could implicate not just Segal&comma; but also Khan&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Since The Daily Wire broke that story&comma; it has uncovered more questions about Segal’s hiring&comma; finding no record that the FTC ever advertised the job to the public &lpar;most openings are required to be advertised on USAJobs&period;gov&rpar;&period; That would mean that Khan gave a civil service job to a Democrat insider without giving the public any chance to apply&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Converting political appointees to career employees at the tail end of an administration is known as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;burrowing” and is only permitted with permission from the Office of Personnel Management&comma; which said it had no record of approving the move&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Some Biden administration officials schemed to <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;dailywire&period;com&sol;news&sol;labor-department-fires-kamala-aide-exposed-by-the-daily-wire-for-burrowing-in-trump-workforce" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">evade<&sol;a> those regulations by creating &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;three-year term” positions that would implant a Democrat operative through the bulk of the Trump administration&comma; but which they argued didn’t count as burrowing because the job wasn’t permanent&period; But such positions also need to be advertised to the public&comma; and wouldn’t be eligible for the buyout&comma; which was designed to get rid of employees who could otherwise be on the payroll for decades&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Khan’s possible abuse of the civil service for partisan purposes is particularly egregious as Democrats claim it is a conspiracy theory for conservatives to believe in a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;deep state&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Although no job postings appear to show the FTC giving others the change to apply to the Deputy Technology Officer job that went to Segal&comma; they do show a frenzy of attempted hiring activity in the FTC’s tech and information departments between the election and inauguration&period; Those include&colon;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<ul>&NewLine;<li>A <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;usajobs&period;gov&sol;job&sol;825540600" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">cyber adviser<&sol;a> at up to &dollar;191&comma;900&comma; posted December 21<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>An <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;usajobs&period;gov&sol;job&sol;825528200" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">IT specialist<&sol;a> at up to &dollar;88&comma;926 posted December 23<&sol;li>&NewLine;<li>A &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Supervisory Information Technology Specialist &lpar;Mission Success Manager&rpar;” at up to <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;usajobs&period;gov&sol;job&sol;827928800" target&equals;"&lowbar;blank" rel&equals;"noopener">&dollar;195&comma;200<&sol;a> posted January 15<&sol;li>&NewLine;<&sol;ul>&NewLine;<p>Khan&comma; now on the faculty of Columbia University&comma; did not return a request for comment&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p><br &sol;>&NewLine;<br &sol;><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;dailywire&period;com&sol;news&sol;socialist-praising-lina-khan-slammed-for-luxury-travel">Source link <&sol;a><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><&excl;-- END THEIA POST SLIDER --><&sol;p>&NewLine;

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