Now we learn that Senior Justice Department officials including Attorney General Eric Holder and former FBI Director Robert Mueller used federal aircraft for hundreds of personal trips that were not properly reported, according to a report by CongressÂ’s nonpartisan Government Accountability office issued this week.
GAO found that Holder, Mueller and other Justice Department executives took 395 unclassified, non-mission flights between fiscal years 2009 and 2001. GAO determined that the flights cost taxpayers $7.8 million. But the General Services Administration, which oversees such trips, did not require documentation because of a GSA reporting exemption that covers intelligence agencies, even in cases of unclassified personal travel.
The GAO report states that the reporting exemption applied to the FBI and other Justice Department agencies contradicts decades-old executive-branch requirements, specifically guidelines established by President Bill Clinton and the Office of Management and Budget. The report said GSA “has not provided a basis for deviating from executive branch requirements.”