Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Mary Beth Buchanan
Until recently, U.S. Attorneys were permitted to approve their own travel expenses, leaving little oversight for how taxpayer dollars were being spent. The Obama administration changed this policy in March by now requiring the director or deputy director of the U.S. Attorneys’ executive office to approve all out-of-district travel.
One example cited under the former policy was Mary Beth Buchanan, who was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as U.S. attorney in the Western District of Pennsylvania. During her eight years, Buchanan made 347 trips at an expense of more than $450,000.
About half of Buchanan’s trips involved travel to and from Washington, where she served for a year as director of the U.S. Attorneys’ executive office and then as the acting director of the Office on Violence Against Women. Her flights often cost $600, and her housing consumed $3,500 a month to rent an apartment in DC.
Buchanan’s other travel included speeches to universities, the American Bar Association and nonprofit groups, as well as trips to The Pennsylvania Society, a group of state politicians and business leaders that meets annually in Manhattan, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Buchanan resigned as U.S. Attorney in November 2009. She ran for the Republican nomination for the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania’s 4th District, but was defeated in this year’s May primary.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Feds Rewrite Travel Rules for U.S. Attorneys (by Paula Reed Ward, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
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