Treasury Department Sued Over Steve Mnuchin and Louise Linton’s Kentucky Trip

Rough days for the newly married couple.

Tom Williams/ZUMA

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Despite the launch of a ball-gown-clad redemption tour, it looks as though the controversy over Louise Linton’s Instagram meltdown is far from over.

The government ethics watchdog group CREW announced on Monday it is suing the Treasury Department for records related to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his wife’s trip to Fort Knox, after the couple used a government plane to travel to Kentucky during last month’s solar eclipse. The one-day trip gained national notoriety after Linton posted a photo of the couple disembarking an official Air Force jet, in which she included a slew of hashtags bragging about the expensive designer labels she was wearing at the time.

After a woman accused her of using taxpayer money for the trip, Linton proceeded to mock her newfound critic for having less money than the Mnuchin-Linton household. 

“At a time of expected deep cuts to the federal budget, the taxpayers have a significant interest in learning the extent to which Secretary Mnuchin has used government planes for travel in lieu of commercial planes, and the justification for that use,” CREW’s executive director Noah Bookbinder said in a statement Monday.

In the wake of the controversy, a Treasury spokesperson said Mnuchin reimbursed the government for Linton’s travel.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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