Lawsuit Filed Against Team Obama: How Much Did Americans Pay for FLOTUS Michelle’s Safari Trip to South Africa?
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on August 31, 2011
First Lady Michelle Obama and others on African safari in June 2011... how much did taxpayers pay for this unnecessary trip, which looks a lot like a vacation?
The “most transparent administration ever” won’t disclose how much FLOTUS Michelle Obama spent and billed the American public for her recent jaunt over to Africa. The $500,000-plus Africa “goodwill/safari” adventure included, in addition to her daughters, some of the First Lady’s other relatives. Some estimates have gone as high as a mind-blowing $800,000 for the trip. Reportedly, she and her entourage staying at a five-star hotel in the middle of a game preserve where rooms exceed $10,000 dollars per night racked up the cost of the “charming” African safari.
FLOTUS Michelle Obama claimed she was on a healthy-food-driven visit to South Africa, promoting healthy eating for African children and speaking against childhood obesity. However, photographs were taken of her at a small café in Botswana where she ordered deep-fried fat cakes and French fries, avoiding the local vegetables or other non-fat-dripping foods. Not only grotesquely hypocritical, sending a warped mixed message to the African children and parents she wants to influence, but the double-whammy of grease just sounds plain disgusting.
Prior to the Africa trip, Michelle had told the press that she was going to Africa to “explore her heritage” or something like that. No problem, Michelle, quite understandable. Just pay for it yourself. Don’t expect me to pay for it. I have no problem with you going on a vacation… 42 days of vacation, though, in one single year (now up to 52 days of vacation because of the First Family’s recent Martha’s Vineyard stay at a poshy $20 million farm estate) is utterly ridiculous.
Despite a request being filed two months ago, the “White House Powers That Be” won’t release the final cost to taxpayers of the First Lady’s Africa trip.
Shame on you, Team Obama.
So, the Team Obama/federal government now has a lawsuit filed against it/them/whatever.
Reported by The Patriot Update, U.S. sued over Michelle’s secretive “family outing”:
Judicial Watch has filed a lawsuit over the federal government’s refusal to disclose how much taxpayers spent to send Michelle Obama on a “family outing” that included a safari in Africa.
The organization, which investigates and fights government corruption, earlier documented what appears to many to be the extravagant spending by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Records showed Pelosi cost taxpayers $101,000 for in-flight food and alcohol over a period in 2008 and 2009. At one point she instructed the Air Force to provide chocolate-covered strawberries for a snack, since it was her birthday.
“How much did the American people spend to send the First Lady on a family outing in Africa? That’s what we want to know,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “On the surface, the trip seems to have been totally unnecessary and was as much an excuse for the Obama family to go on a safari as it was a mission intended to advance the nation’s business in Africa.”
The organization requested information in June regarding the expenses for the trip. The request included records for the mission taskings for the June 21-27 trip to South Africa and Botswana, the transportation costs and all passenger manifests for the trip.
The government had until Aug. 3 to respond, but did not, so Judicial Watch now has followed up with a lawsuit.
This was written on June 29 by M. Catharine Evans at American Thinker — Michelle O’s $800,000 Entitlement?:
A visit to South Africa is important for them as a family. She’ll be visiting many Struggle-era landmarks, including the Apartheid Museum (and) the Hector Pieterson Memorial.
Obviously Michelle doesn’t give a whit that she’s fleecing average Americans. Or that draping Malia and Sasha in South African flags is downright bizarre for a first lady representing the United States. Or that eating fatty foods, but telling others to “eat your vegetables” is downright Dante-esque. She told a crowd of young people at the University of Cape Town her favorite food is French fries, “I can’t stop eating them.” Michelle just blew her credibility in her vanity campaign against obesity.
The government watchdog group Judicial Watch has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Air Force seeking to obtain details and costs of First Lady Michelle Obama’s trip to South Africa and Botswana June 21-27.
The request, announced today, was filed June 28, one day after White House Dossier published an examination of the trip that found it included a significant vacation component and probably cost taxpayers well over $500,000.
[...]
While the stated goal of the trip was “youth leadership, education, health and wellness” in southern Africa, the excursion included tourist stops to historical landmarks and museums, a chance for Mrs. Obama to meet privately with Nelson Mandela – an experience she described as “surreal” – and a private safari.
The first lady brought along her mother, her daughters and two of their cousins – the children of her brother Craig Robinson.
“A visit to South Africa is important for them as a family,” said a spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in South Africa prior to the trip.
I’d love to explore my own Irish/Scottish/British roots in the UK — maybe take in a tour of the castles and Stonehenge — and FLOTUS Michelle, such a visit would be important to MY family, too. But you don’t see me subtracting the costs for such a lavish trip from my income taxes… but maybe I could!
If I could find some chubby little Irish or Scottish or Brit kids and lectured them about the importance of eating spinach and bran, perhaps I, too, could call myself a “goodwill food ambassador.” Crikey, any number of us could be “goodwill food ambassadors,” since I’d wager that many Americans’ knowledge or trained backgrounds in food and nutrition is likely equal to or greater than Michelle’s.
Of course, any of my orders of shepherd’s pie, bubble and squeak, fish and chips, or bangers and mash would have to be on the sly.
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Unbelievable and deplorable… UPDATE, October 3, 2011:
About the author
What do we have to do to stop this ABUSE of our country by these USA haters? I’m sure I know how, but I would like to live free a few more years.
When I read articles like the interesting one about Mrs. Obama spending hundreds of thousands of our tax money to treat her family, staff and kids, I want to tell every single person who voted for Barack that they must never, never, do that again!!! These people are newly rich…and spending like this only proves that case. They need to be out of the White House and we need an entire regime change–too far away to suit me!!
But let’s, for now, start with that liar, Eric Holder!! This week he should be fired for lying about Fast and Furious….plain and simple, fired!! Both he and Obama knew about the mission and they knew well before they now admit to knowing.
Another “sneaky” Obama and Holder covered up….they raided (without notice) and took all the documents and computer hard drives from Solyndra’s plant so that Holder could purge all the negative comments about the White House….and destroy all the evidence against Obama and the rest of the Democrats—Holder’s men and women took everything incriminating to get rid of it, and I am sure they threatened the executives who took the Fifth in the hearing!! My God, we are in trouble. Thank you for all you do!! Ann Cox in Carson City, NV
The extravagence of this woman is disgusting. Who elected her and who gave her permission to use millions of taxpayer dollars to fund her personal vacations disguised as international goodwill missions?