U.S. Rep. Barney Frank didn’t get just a free luxury jet ride to the Virgin Islands with a financier who got a $200 million federal bailout, he also stayed at the billionaire’s tropical mansion, his aide said. “They’re friends. Are you not supposed to have friends if they’re wealthy?” Frank spokesman Harry Gural said of the Newton Democrat’s relationship with S. Donald Sussman.
The Herald reported yesterday that Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, flew to the Virgin Islands last Christmas on Sussman’s $25 million Dassault Falcon 2000EX luxury jet.
Sussman is head of Paloma Partners, a company whose subsidiary, Paloma Securities, received $200 million in the $180 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG.
Frank, who has become the face of the unpopular federal bailouts, told the Herald the trip was “personal,” saying he and his partner, Jim Ready, are friends of Sussman and his fiancee, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine). Gural said all four stayed at Sussman’s St. Thomas manse.
Frank reported the cost of the flight from Maine to the Virgin Islands at $1,500, but reported no other expenses. Aviation experts pegged the total cost of such a flight at as much as $30,000 each way.
Gural said Frank reported all required expenses.
“Before he did any of this, he went to the Ethics Committee and cleared it. He wanted to make sure he stayed within the lines completely,” Gural said.
Frank’s opponent, Sean Bielat, was on the airwaves yesterday slamming the jet jaunt.
Republican National Committee spokesman Parish Braden, citing “serious ethical concerns,” said: “If there’s nothing to hide, Chairman Frank should be forthright with his constituents and immediately address why accepting a paid jet to the Caribbean from Sussman is not a blatant conflict of interest.”
