Ethics Watchdog Has a Theory About Louise Linton and Steve Mnuchin's Infamous Day Trip

Louise Linton, the wealth-touting Queen of privilege and wife of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, joined the ranks of the internet’s most reviled on Monday after she ripped into a stranger who criticized her on Instagram.

“Aw!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable,” Linton wrote in response to a woman who quipped that she was glad taxpayers funded “their little getaway” to Kentucky.

By the Treasury’s account of events, Mnuchin took Linton with him to Fort Knox, KY, where he met Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to discuss tax cuts and tour the compound’s gold vaults. But Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a political watchdog group, has another theory about Mnuchin’s trip.

The eclipse. They wanted to get a better view of the eclipse.

CREW suspects that the trip was organized to coincide with the eclipse, particularly its path of totality, and filed a Freedom of Information Act request for copies of all trip documents (including authorization and cost records).

“The requested records would shed light on the justification for Secretary Mnuchin’s use of a government plane, rather than a commercial flight, for a trip that seems to have been planned around the solar eclipse and to enable the Secretary to secure a viewpoint in the path of the eclipse’s totality,” the request stated.

Traveling to view the eclipse’s path of totality would ordinarily be benign, if Mnuchin had personally financed the trip. Instead, the newlyweds flew on a government jet, which means their eclipse escapade was at least partially funded by taxpayers (Mnuchin claimed to have reimbursed the treasury for Linton’s travel costs).

“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,” the request continued.

While I have a hard time believing that a woman who sycophantly tags all the designers she wears in Instagram posts would deign to fly commercial, I’m quite sure the Mnuchins have enough combined wealth to charter their own plane for eclipse hunting.