Would-be Speaker Hakeem Jeffries wants Democratic lawmakers to curb their privately funded travel as the elections approach – but he’s been dispatching top aides to Ireland, San Francisco, and Las Vegas to the tune of over $32,000, documents filed with the House Clerk reveal.
Jeffries “is always calling a number of members about [stopping] it – and they’re not doing it,” one Democratic source vented to The Post.
For his own staff, Jeffries personally signed off on eight privately-funded trips over the last year for a tally of $32,493, records reveal.
The jaunts included places such as London, where in July, a senior aide took a tour of the storied Abbey Road studios, paid a visit to the BBC, dined in Mayfair, and held meetings with top British diplomats, with the bipartisan Global Women’s Innovation Network paying the $3,500 bill, according to travel disclosures filed this year.
“We will hear success stories of female sellers who’ve grown from side hustles to full-fledged fashion brands,” according to an agenda listing a meeting at the offices of the Depop social shopping app.
Another aide to the Brooklyn lawmaker traveled to Bozeman, Montana and Jackson Hole, Wyoming in June for a “tour of Yellowstone National Park with the National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service to discuss the challenges that the park is facing and the impact of tourism on the local economy,” according to a disclosure. Other staffers flew to Palo Alto, Calif., Ireland and Israel, records show.
Aides and lawmakers who take the trips paid by outside groups must justify them to the House Ethics Committee, although the reasons can be vague, like the Ireland trip funded by the US-Ireland Partnership for Growth where members of a group “met with government officials and business leaders in Cork and Dublin to discuss matters of tax and trade.”
Jeffries, who did not return a request for comment, would have to be elected Speaker by a vote in the full House if Democrats take control. He lost a potential primary challenger when lefty New York City Councilman Chi Ossé withdrew from the race after failing to get support from the Democratic Socialists of America.
Other globetrotters include:
Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-SI) accepted travel to Sea Island, Georgia in March valued at $1,369, his office disclosed. On another trip last year, he was accompanied by his wife on a trip to Geneva, Switzerland, with travel, lodging and food valued at $18,932.
That trip for more than two dozen lawmakers was paid for for by the Ripon Society, a bipartisan policy foundation, with the Suozzis footing their return travel themselves. They attended a similar event in Vienna, Austria the prior November.
Sin City played host to a handful of aides to New York lawmakers at an event footed by the Consumer Technology Association. Making the cross country trip were advisors to Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-Brooklyn), Nydia Velazquez (D-Brooklyn/Queens).
The private travel came in a year when socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drew headlines for spending nearly $50,000 in campaign funds on hotels, dining and travel in Puerto Rico.
“When it’s privately financed it always raises red flags about what that source wants from the public officials. We’ve tried to rein in privately financed travel as much as possible,” said Craig Holman of watchdog group Public Citizen.
“If any private special interest wants to provide a friend in Congress with a pleasurable experience, they don’t fly them to Alaska in the middle of winter or into a war zone,” Holman noted. “They fly them into some nice pleasant place that is a vacation spot. That alone highlights how private special interests really are trying to provide inside favors and influence to Members of Congress when they provide travel.”
