The Trump administration’s rampant grifting isn’t the only kind of corruption going on. There’s also a staggeringly high level of good old “give high-paying jobs to unqualified supporters” corruption, as a Washington Post look at Ben Carson’s Housing and Urban Development Department shows. Twenty-four out of 70 of the best-paid HUD appointees have no housing experience, 16 of those 24 worked on either the Carson or Trump campaigns, and among five who quickly got big promotions and pay raises, three did not list bachelor’s degrees on their resumes.
Political appointees who did not list housing policy experience on their résumés and who landed in high-paying roles include Carson’s chief of staff, Andrew Hughes, a former plumbing and HVAC salesman who had also worked as a special projects coordinator at the University of Texas System’s Washington lobbying shop. [...]
Mason Alexander, a former event manager, entered HUD last January as a special assistant making $107,435 a year. A HUD staffer who recently resigned said Alexander had started in executive scheduling, planning Carson’s travel and listening tour. By September, he was promoted to senior adviser, though not in a policy role, and received a 23 percent raise, bringing his salary to $131,767.
Alexander’s résumé says he has an associate degree in communication from Tallahassee Community College and a professional background in strategic planning. The résumé noted that Alexander had helped prepare press staging areas for Trump campaign rallies.
In one case, someone with no housing experience who opposes government benefits and spread conspiracy theories about the Clinton campaign was appointed to head an Obama-era program that the Trump administration had “effectively ended.” He was then promoted to be senior adviser in the Office of Community Planning and Development
By contrast, seven out of the 66 top-paid political appointees in the Obama administration lacked housing experience. It’s likely that they all at least embraced the mission of the agency they were working in.