Housing and Urban Development (HUD) secretary Ben Carson took a while to own up to plans for furnishing his office with a $31,000 dining set funded by taxpayers. First, he pretended to not know that he ordered the expensive set. Then he threw his wife under the bus. Emails revealed the (obvious) truth: he knew about it. And now, he’s saying it’s partially chalked up to … Jesus?
When Carson appeared before the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, this topic obviously came up. That’s when he finally admitted to being responsible for trying to commit this egregious misuse of government funding—but his admission of guilt had a weird caveat.
“I take responsibility,” Mr. Carson said.
Later, he suggested the episode had been a personal ordeal, saying that he modeled his reaction to the criticism on advice that Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount, which he summarized as “don’t worry about what people are saying about you, and do the right thing.”
Uh, so he’s saying Jesus told him to keep lying to the public when the scandal blew up? I’m not sure if that’s the message Jesus had in mind. In fact, if he really cared about what Jesus had to say, his tenure at HUD would be a lot more compassionate—instead of pulling the agency away from its mission.
This isn’t an issue of Carson being unfairly targeted. The Trump administration has been riddled with scandals surrounding misuse of government funds. It looks like the HUD secretary really fits in.