Thomas Modly, the now-former acting secretary of the Navy, spent almost a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer money to fly from Washington, D.C., to Guam this week before he resigned over his handling of the dismissal of an aircraft carrier captain.
When Modly arrived at the U.S. territory of Guam on Monday, he spoke to sailors onboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt and said their former captain, Brett Crozier, was either "too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this" after Crozier leaked a letter to the media that revealed a COVID-19 outbreak on the ship. Modly relieved Crozier of duty last week after the letter surfaced, and his trip to Guam — he was on the ship for a half hour, according to The New York Times — cost taxpayers more than $243,000.
USA Today cited an unnamed Navy official who said Modly flew on a Gulfstream C-37B business jet, which costs $6,946.19 per hour to operate. The total flying time of the trip to and from Guam was roughly 35 hours.
Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., is chairperson of the House Armed Services Committee's Military Personnel Subcommittee. She told USA Today that President Donald Trump needs to find out why Modly was given clearance for such a trip.
"The president should turn his ire on the brain trust that allowed Modly to travel to Guam at the cost of nearly $250,000 — a trip that only made the situation aboard the USS Roosevelt exponentially worse while still failing to address the needs of the crew, and the fleet, to protect itself amid the COVID-19 outbreak," she said.
Modly resigned the day after his Guam trip. He is currently being quarantined after his visit on the Theodore Roosevelt, which according to Fox News has more than 400 coronavirus cases.
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