On Friday, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Ben Carson woke up to screaming headlines claiming he had broken the law. "HUD's Ben Carson broke law with furniture order, GAO says," Politico's headline read. "Watchdog: Housing department broke the law with $40,000 furniture purchase for Ben Carson," CNN reported. Yet these outlets did not report the much larger number: the $125,000 spent on office furnishings under the Obama administration.
In fact, under Carson, HUD reported its spending on furniture to Congress, unlike the HUD secretaries under the Obama administration. After having ordered a $31,000 dining set, Carson canceled the order and refunded the money to the treasury. The HUD secretaries under Obama did not.
