Secretary of State Marco Rubio has run up more than $1.2 million in taxpayer-funded flights to Gainesville, Florida, many of them to watch his son’s college football team play.
According to a Washington Post analysis of flight records, Rubio has flown to the University of Florida’s home at least 23 times on government aircraft since taking office last year. That includes at least 10 Gators games at the stadium known as The Swamp, and the State Department classified 15 of those trips as solely personal.
Rubio’s son Anthony is a walk-on running back for the Gators. In four years, he has played in four games and gained 75 yards.
The secretary of state is barred from flying commercially for security reasons, so he travels on military jets that the Defense Department bills at about $9,100 an hour. On three trips, he flew a larger Boeing C-32A, the type often used by the vice president, which costs about $18,600 an hour. Officials have to reimburse the government only the price of an economy ticket for personal travel.
The Post estimates Rubio’s reimbursements would come to roughly $18,000 to $33,000. Rubio and the State Department declined to say how much he actually paid back.
Just three years ago, he demanded an investigation into then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s use of government aircraft and formally asked the department's inspector general to look into the matter.
“American taxpayers deserve assurances that their tax dollars are not wasted by the government’s highest officials,” Rubio wrote at the time.
The watchdog found Buttigieg had followed the rules. Government jets accounted for about 11 percent of his plane travel, at a total cost of $59,000, less than one-twentieth of Rubio’s estimated tab.
Former State Department officials told the Post that Rubio’s personal travel appears to significantly outpace his predecessors’. Antony Blinken, for example, used government planes for personal trips only a couple of times a year.
Rubio was unapologetic when asked for comment on his personal travel.
“I have and will continue to try and make it to as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” he said in a statement.
Ethics experts said the trips comply with federal rules but raise questions about the use of public money.
“If this travel becomes something that is undermining the integrity of your service, are you really taking care of taxpayer dollars the way that you’re obligated to as a public official?” asked Cynthia Brown of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.