So to whom should we direct our green-eyed gaze? Farnam tells us that the most-traveled staffers are two House aides who each have disclosed 13 trips over a six-year period.
Nice work if you can get it.
More from In the Loop:
In the Loop: Losing planes, framing Cabinet members
It’s all a matter of perspective inside the Beltway.
Obama is out of the loop on IRS policy?
That IRS thing? The White House employed its “Don’t tell Dad” policy.
Will no trash cans mean no trash?
In the Loop: The Park Service takes a novel approach to keeping America beautiful.
One, Arturo Estopinan, the D.C. chief of staff for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), has spent 109 days abroad on trips financed by foreign governments.
Ros-Lehtinen is the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, so perhaps her staffers need a global perspective. “As chief of staff, I constantly deal with issues, cases and constituents that have an international aspect and therefore my role is similar to that of a staffer on the Foreign Affairs Committee,” Estopinan told Farnam in an e-mailed statement.
Estopinan is tied with Ed McDonald, the chief of staff for Rep. Howard Coble (R-N.C.), whose jaunts Farnam chronicled in his in-depth piece on the cultural trips. McDonald has taken at least six trips to China.
“We need to be informed,” McDonald told Farnam. “As the congressman’s chief of staff, I’m his top policy adviser, so it’s important to learn about as many issues as I can.”
More about the jet-setting ways of Hill staffers, per Farnam’s reporting:
Records show that 23 senior staffers have taken three or more trips in one year from 2006 through 2011. They have disclosed at least 34 return trips to countries they’ve visited before.
Kristin Smith, an aide to former Montana congressman Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), went on five trips in one year, spending 39 days in 2010 traveling to Korea, Taiwan, Jordan, China and Japan. Smith declined to comment, and Rehberg, who was on an Appropriations subcommittee dealing with foreign affairs at the time, did not return a request for comment.
Pinning it down
Quote of the day: “Guys, I will bone up on my wrestling and I’ll be back.”
Victoria Nuland, State Department spokeswoman, said that after admitting she hadn’t heard about the high-profile decision by the International Olympic Committee to eliminate wrestling from the games. She did, however, offer that she was aware that “our own wrestling team is — is in Tehran for the world’s wrestling something-or-other.” (That would the Wrestling World Cup, in which the Americans lost six of seven bouts to the Iranians on Thursday.)
With Emily Heil
The blog: washingtonpost.com/
intheloop. Twitter: @InTheLoopWP.
Loading...
Comments