If you had asked me last Sunday what I thought I would be writing about this week, I would have said “probably Taylor Swift and Game of Thrones.” I could not have predicted that one of the biggest stories of the week would be the Treasury Secretary’s tacky-ass wife. On Monday, Steve Mnuchin and his tacky wife Louise Linton traveled to Kentucky for a day trip. They flew on a government plane, they took a tour of Fort Knox, then they viewed the solar eclipse. All of that was on the taxpayer’s dime. When Linton posted an Instagram of her designer ensemble, complete with hashtags of the designers, she was called deplorable (justifiably so) and then she unloaded on her haters in the comments. Linton will likely be shunned from all of those fashionable events she craves. But there’s a bigger question: why the sh-t did Mnuchin and Linton travel to Kentucky? Was it just to see the eclipse??
Louise Linton, wife of U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, drew accusations of elitism this week for an Instagram glamour shot of her stepping off a government jet — and for her mockery of an online critic as “adorably out of touch.” But a watchdog group and a lawmaker seized on a different issue: Did the millionaire couple fly to Louisville on Monday, on a taxpayer-funded plane, just to see the solar eclipse? Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) suggested as much in seeking records of the trip, saying it “seems to have been planned around the solar eclipse.”
It turns out that Mnuchin did view the eclipse while he was in Kentucky, and from an extraordinary place: Just outside the path of totality, from the roof of the nation’s fabled Fort Knox, atop nearly $200 billion in American gold. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) posted a Facebook photo of himself, holding a pair of eclipse glasses, and Mnuchin at the U.S. Bullion Repository, where he said “we viewed the #solareclipse from the rooftop today.”
But Treasury officials said Thursday that the trip was planned explicitly around “official government travel,” rejecting the idea that the Fort Knox visit and the appearance at a luncheon for the local chamber of commerce were mere cover. They said the luncheon appearance had been planned for early August but was delayed when McConnell postponed the Senate’s recess, an account confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Louisville chamber, Alison Brotzge-Elder.
Asked about the rooftop view of the eclipse, a spokesman for Sen. McConnell called it an added bonus of the visit and quipped, “Kentucky was the best place to see it, hands down.”
I think it could be both: that the trip was originally planned for earlier in August, but they changed the date when Congress didn’t go on recess when originally planned, and then Mnuchin and Linton rearranged the trip to coincide with the eclipse. This is day-tripping for people worth $500 million – they go to Fort Knox to stroke gold bullion, then they sit atop the nation’s mountain of gold to view the solar eclipse. We are living in such strange times. As for the issue about taxpayer funds and everything… clearly, this is tacky, gross and very likely an ethical violation. But here’s the thing: like, this entire administration is an unethical quagmire. There are ethics violations piling up every g–damn day. I’m not saying we shouldn’t care about this, but care about all of the other unethical sh-t that’s happening too.
Photos courtesy of WENN and Getty.
Good Lord these people are so tacky and classless. Grifters.
She better watch it or her hubby will be out of a job. There is nothing Trump hates more than someone other than himself getting attention.
@megan
Sorry, what you wrote just made me giggle. And you are also totally right.
He is in danger (via his wife) of being forced to do the Scaramucci Shuffle out of town!
#NobodyIsBiggerThanTheBoss!
Especially when that person is a blonde.
Where is the lie?
It’s like a special Eclipse episode of Dynasty.
This comment is GOLD. Lol!! Love it!
Louise must have attended the Alexis Morrill Carrington Colby Dexter Rowan School for Women Who Want to Marry Rich.
But Louise failed the ” Not Being a Tacky Trophy Wife 101″ course
OR she was first in her class in “Tacky Trophy Wife 101”. It’s all a matter of perspective, my dear 🙂
It’s like the beginning of a fable “An ugly rich man, his vain wife and a turtle sat on a pile of gold to look at the sun…”
Probably because she took the “How to be a Tacky Trophy Wife 101” course – on purpose!
Louise and Johnny Cheban (Kim K’s pet) came up with the idea for the course during an acting workshop given by Scott Baio at the LAX Holiday Inn years ago so take that into consideration. How else do you think Chachi wiggled his way into the fold?
BOOM!
Is she trying to get a part on a Real Housewives show or have Andy Cohen bring back Real Housewives of DC?
I can easily see Louise being on one of those shows.
She had to dress in all those expensive designer clothes for that? I wore one of my millions of anti Trump shirts and went into my back yard to look at the eclipse. Couldn’t see it from Florida though 😢
Excellent choice ! I want to get an anti-trump tee myself. I can’t decide on the color though, an ugly orange maybe.
#sweatpants #ancient t-shirt #tennis shoes from Target
My eclipse viewing – and daily – uniform uniform 🙂
Scrubs were my eclipse viewing ensemble and the only reason I saw it was because of a home health patient I was visiting on that day (at his urging, from his backyard, using his glasses)
As an aside, Louise Linton is categorically a puke.
What are your t-shirts? I have all tanks but I have a “I’m one of 65,844,610 Americans against Trump” that my BF bought me, a “P*ssy Grabs Back” one with a kitty on it, a “Wake ME When It’s 2020” tank, and a “She Persisted” one (also bought by BF).
I also have a “Science is Not a Liberal Conspiracy” tank top and a “Question Everything, Worship Nothing” that are semi-related lol.
I was saying the other day that I’ve never been a fan of t-shirts with writing on them until Dumpy was elected, now I’m practically a fanatic. 😉
Question everything worship Nothing- wow. The best anti-cult statement EVER
Nice 🙂 These messages are great; I think I like the “Question Everything, Worship Nothing” best. Fantastic. I’m about to legally paint on an official building, and I was going to use something different, but I think I’ll go with that one now. Thanks for the inspiration!
ETA: In my teenage years, I had three shirts I really liked that had written messages on them. One said, “Here comes trouble!”, the second one, “Respect yourself”, and the third one I got on a family trip to Italy; it said, “The planet is fine. The people are f*cked.” I don’t know how or why, but I’m less in-your-face cynical now.
I own two shirts with writing on them now; I’m wearing one saying “Dance your feet off!” right now. And the other one is a tank top that says “Miami Beach, California”. I drove past a shop, saw the writing from the corner of my eye, thought, “that’s not right”, turned around and bought the shirt for two of my friends and one for myself because it’s so wrong.
This unnecessary field trip also created extra effort to open vaults. I read it was difficult and time consuming to break those seals.
My dad did night guard duty at Knox in the 1960s. I asked if it was stressful or difficult, and he said not really. Why? Because of how elaborately booby trapped the place is. There is a reason for the phrase ‘like Fort Knox’.
A rich dude wanting to see if the gold was safe on eclipse day, requiring taxpayer resources, is ridiculous. I am glad his third wife posted her fashion photo (which inadvertently drew attention to it).
Christin: Thanks for mentioning that. I’ve been wondering.
Meanwhile, explain to me again about how this is the party of “fiscal responsibility.”
They’ve never been fiscally responsible. They only bloviate about it. And the suckers eat it up.
“Fiscal responsibility” in conservative-speak means not letting unlucky — poor, non-white, non-male, or non-Republican — people have a financial stake in the nation. So they can claim that withholding health care, responsible financial advice, programs to ensure clean air and water, alternative energy, or quality education is somehow equivalent to them doing their civic duty. Spending money to ensure the happiness of the haves, though, that’s cool.
This guy must have thought he was scouting a filming location.
There was absolutely no legitimate reason I can see for him to need to visit that depository and see the gold. I hope someone forces a calculation of all manpower it took to accommodate this unnecessary vault visit.
“Treasury Secretary’s tacky-ass wife”
@Kaiser not only is this statement ACCURATE its funny as sh*t.
I’m in no way trying to defend these two vile people, but if they were going to take a govt plane to Kentucky for the purpose of seeing the eclipse, wouldn’t they have chosen a place that was in the totality zone? Outside the zone it wasn’t really as impressive, I think. (I was in DC where we had maybe 85 percent eclipse and it never really got dark or anything.)
Just throwing that out there.
Yes, this is bizzare. The difference between 99% and Total is night and day.
LIterally.
I was in the 85-90% zone and it only got dim for about 15 minutes. I’m trying to convince a stray cat that she wants to live with me and I’ve reached the point where I can pick her up safely, but I couldn’t get near her during that period. I think every bird in town started singing at the same time, too. They got quite vocal.
They may not have realized that. I was in a 95-96 zone, and local news kept emphasizing that, leading to the assumption it would be darker than it actually was.
They may not have realized it and as Treasury Secretary they have had limited options for spots within the path that might have fallen within his job scope.
They also did not need to fly a government plane.
I take a little bit of satisfaction in the fact that anything outside of totality wasn’t that cool. I was in 99% coverage, and family and friends 50 miles away in the path said it was the most amazing, indescribable thing they’d ever seen.
To me it was just– meh. I love that these tacky assholes only got to see ‘meh’.
Molly, I was in the path of totality and they’re right. Indescribable is a good word. I audibly gasped and dropped my drink. Dramatic on my part? Sure, but it was the most weirdly amazing thing I’ve ever seen.
I too saw the Eclipse in its totality!
And from the spot in Southern Illinois that recorded the LONGEST totality. And indescribable is correct!
Now I can’t wait for the next one in 2024.
Wonder where these 2 buffoons will be viewing that one….
(From the prison exercise yard?)
Jenny – How lucky! Southern Illinois is supposedly the only US area that will be in both 2017/24 totality paths.
You’re talking about science! People of their ilk don’t believe in science. Your thinking is too logical to them!
There will be more news of their ethics violations now and it is deservedly so.
Louise Linton could have ignored the comment or given a generic reply, instead she decided to be a total bitch to someone for almost no reason.
She deserves all the negative focus
Maybe she will negotiate it smartly and finally land the reality show deal.
When you are married to the “foreclosure king” you might want to be a little more discreet about your wealth.
^^This, so much!^^
But, she will not be discreet, because she really is that insecure…and so, she will be gone.
The lawsuits just write themselves.
But why would they be discrete? If the past decade or so has taught us anything, it’s that they can get away with this and nothing meaningful will be done. I miss Obama daily, but I will always dislike that he gave Wall Street a free pass after 2008.
The message Wall Street got in 2008 to 2010 is that they can do what they like and so long as they are big and rich enough, the rules don’t apply. Now in the era of Trump, they have even less reason to be discrete. They won, and it didn’t even take a decade for everyone to forget the recession.
What I don’t understand —people are in federal prison right now who were charged and convicted/pleaded to similar (and much smaller, monetarily) abuses of their public entity position.
In Virginia, several executives, board members and even the lawyer of a public utility are serving time over accepting a trip, game tickets and gift cards and not properly reporting them. The grand total was likely less than trip. It makes no sense.
They stroked gold bullion then stood on top of it to watch a solar eclipse? OMFG, are rich people just caricatures of themselves at this point?
It’s stupid, it’s tacky, and it’s just so over the top. But that’s to be expected from these people.
Mike Duffy (tv guy, PEI senator) ended up involved in a huge expense scandal in Canada. He claimed housing expenses for traveling on a house he’d already been living in for like a decade, and was involved with a lot of sketchy cover up on the 30+ things he was charged for. He was acquitted of it all – which I find ridiculous – and he never denied doing any of the things. His excuse that SOMEHOW worked was “well I didn’t know it wasn’t legal/ethical to do this, and I was pressured by the PMs office”. Which sorry, bud. If I screw up on my taxes and tell them “ohhh but I didn’t KNOW I couldn’t do that, and someone told me I could” they’re not going to pat me on the head and walk away. But whatever. We’re already past that. Now he’s trying to sue for 7+ million in damages somehow. Which is absolute tacky BS.
Some of the trips he claimed were like this one. Scheduled a trip to Vancouver so he could be there for the birth of his grandkid. He somehow claimed a person trainer. Billed 8k to go to a fair in B.C. – a fair he skipped to attend opening night of his daughters play. Had a meeting with an MP and went to a dog show and shopped around for a puppy. Billed the senate for trips to attend funerals. Just all kind of sketchy BS that nobody should get away with. I think this kind of thing is criminally too common though – I understand that if you’re attending a meeting somewhere, and something comes up that takes you away – but that’s going to be a rare situation. You shouldn’t be planning your trips around when you can see family, or look for dogs, or any of that sort of thing. Or at the very least, you should be only billing for costs DIRECTLY related to any legit work being done. If you’re going to a meeting but also are planning on attending some family event or dog show – charge the cost of one way airfair and cover the return on your own dime since you had other motives for being in that specific location. It’s just so ridiculous, and so selfish.
Duffy billed for a personal trainer? That person had the easiest job ever. I wonder if they ever even met? Or if it was one of his family members?
All his grifting was learned behaviour from the chronies who put him there.
And he’s now suing the senate and RCMP for $8 million in damages. Says he was “unfairly targeted”. *Shakes head and reaches for wine bottle*
He also said that he’s claiming ‘pain and suffering’ because of the negative impact his trial had on his health. He could probably qualify for a job in 45’s administration just because of all the BS he’s spewing. For shame!!!
“Do you hear the people sing?”
I hope Mnuchin, and his blatantly out of touch wife, are the next Drumpfian clan members to be fired… or better yet the Mnuchins, AND the Gorkas.
That shot of her holding the bible, wearing that blue dress reminds me too much of The Handmaid’s Tale…very creepy!
I hope to God that they’re gone by the end of the day because Trump can’t stand all of the attention on someone else.
Doesn’t he tend to fire people on Fridays? 🙂
As I’ve said before. This moron and his idiot wife doesn’t need to haul out AFO to go to Kentucky. He can purchase coach from any national airlines (which he can rightfully ask the govt to comp) and pay for a first class/business class upgrade as well as his wife’s airfare on his own dime. I can tell you it’s a whole lot cheaper than using AFO.
I hope he reimburses us for this but for some reason I can see Orangino will “forgive this debt” since Mnuchin stood there silently while Orangino basically rubberstamped the Nazis.
So I’m not advocating violence by saying this, but recent events have given me a whole new appreciation for why the French monarchy or the Tsars of Russia were executed. I’m not generally a violent person, but I’m more and more understanding why a population could do away with such heartless and clueless leadership.
As I said, I’m not advocating violence, just commenting that the Trumpians have provided me with a very unwelcome understanding of why a society could arrive at that point. Because when it’s so obvious those in charge and their minions have no respect for the general population’s humanity or worth as a person, it’s not shocking that people respond in kind.
If anyone wants to tip @jennimiller29 for calling Saviour Barbie out on her Instagram post in the first place, she has a crowdfunding link on her own Instagram for a friend who had a stroke. I gave the price of a Starbucks frappe.
It’s unfortunate that all we can do is get indignant and complain about a decision that obviously culminated in their bedroom. It won’t change anything. Even CREW won’t be allowed to find the truth. All we can do is look at the photos of this couple and LOL because they look so ridiculous next to each other. Him, with an intelligent eye staring out of an ugly visage. Her, with manufactured beauty and vacuous-oozing, camera-hungry, imbecilic smile. It’s a presentation we’ve seen thousands of times in history, and it never gets less ridiculous. And because he should have learned from history, smart ugly dude needs to stop letting little ugly dude be influenced into making bone-headed (pun intended) decisions by his wife. We know why you married her, limit her pronouncements to the bedroom.
Why won’t people let her be great?!?! That poor thing only has a few good years of (tacky) trophy wife-ing left and we’re all holding her back, damn it!!! Think of the trophy wives!!! Won’t sombody think of the trophy wives!!!! #target #tarjaaayyy #fashyon
You are right. We have been selfish when a much neglected segment of society needed us we turned our backs on them. Trophy wives are people too. #trophypower #freelouise #btchgottagethermoney
#trophylivesmatter