Attorney general’s private trips cost taxpayers over $150,000

WASHINGTON – Attorney General Michael Mukasey has taken personal trips on government jets almost every weekend since he took office less than a year ago at a cost to taxpayers of more than $155,800, Justice Department and Federal Aviation Administration travel records show.

Mukasey took so many trips to his home in New York on FAA, FBI or Drug Enforcement Administration planes that he was outside Washington a third or more of February, May, July, August and September. From November 2007 to September 2008, he traveled to New York 45 times, according to the records, which were released in late October in response to open records requests that McClatchy Newspapers filed nine months ago.

Justice Department officials defended Mukasey’s personal travel, saying that he has no choice but to fly on a government plane to see his family. Mukasey, unlike most other Cabinet members, is required to fly on government planes, rather than commercial ones, for security reasons, and he often worked from home, the officials said.

“When he travels personally, the attorney general pays what any other government official would pay for a commercial flight to that location,” Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said in a statement. “It would be unfair to penalize financially the attorney general because he is one of the few government officials required to use government aircraft for all travel.”

Mukasey traveled with his wife on 17 of the trips, and eight of them were with four or five other relatives. Most of the trips with his wife and other relatives were one-way between New York and Washington.

Mukasey reimbursed the government a total of $15,246 for all of his trips, based on round-trip coach fares, as he’s required to do by government travel regulations. However, the cost of operating the Gulfstream G5s, Cessna Citations and de Havilland Dash 8-100s that Mukasey uses is tens of thousands of dollars more.

For example, the attorney general reimbursed the Justice Department $128.80 for a round-trip ticket to New York. The actual cost to the government, according to the department: $4,021.32.

In February, Mukasey flew to Orlando, Fla., with his wife and four other relatives. Under travel regulations, officials who are required to travel by government aircraft are permitted to take relatives with them as long as they reimburse the taxpayers for the equivalent coach fare, which Mukasey did, officials said. For that trip, he paid $2,173. The actual cost to the government, according to the Justice Department: $12,250.

Mukasey’s personal trips appear to outpace those of other officials who are required to travel on government jets.

During the same time period, Defense Secretary Robert Gates took fewer than six personal trips, and he also reimbursed the government at coach fares. The Pentagon refused to release the details of the secretary’s personal travel, but spokesman Bryan Whitman said “you can count on one hand” the number of personal trips Gates took in fiscal 2008.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who became one of the few officials required to fly on a government plane in 2004, didn’t appear to have taken any personal trips in the last fiscal year, according to FAA records. His staff said he’s taken about three personal trips a year during his four-year tenure and also has reimbursed the government for them at coach fare.