Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.) made yet another unfounded claim on Wednesday while speaking about Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson’s spending.
The lawmaker was talking to a New York radio station when she blamed the “deep state” for a $31,000 dining set that Carson’s wife apparently ordered for his office. Tenney told the “Talk of the Town” hosts that she spoke to someone from Carson’s office and that no one on his team had ordered the set.
“Somebody in the deep state ― it was not one of his people, apparently ― ordered a table, like a conference room table or whatever it was, for a room,” Tenney said. “And that’s what the cost was. Ben Carson tried to — he said, “You know how hard it is to turn it back because of the way that the procurement happens?”
Tenney was citing the conspiracy theory that there’s an underground network in the U.S. government, or “deep state,” working to delegitimize President Donald Trump’s administration. Trump and his son Eric have both pushed the idea on their Twitter accounts.
But it’s unclear why the congresswoman would make such a claim when Carson has blamed his wife for ordering the lavish dining set.
“The next thing that I, quite frankly, heard about it was that this $31,000 table had been bought,” Carson testified on Tuesday during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing. “I said, ‘What the heck is that all about?’ I investigated, I immediately had it canceled. Not that we don’t need the furniture, but I thought that that was excessive.”
Emails that the liberal watchdog group American Oversight obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that both Carson and his wife were involved in selecting the furniture.
Tenney’s comment about the “deep state” comes weeks after she claimed that many mass shooters “end up being Democrats.”
Her office did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Listen to the full “Talk of the Town” segment below.