Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson allowed his son to help organize an agency "listening tour" in Baltimore last summer despite warnings from department lawyers that doing so risked violating federal ethics rules, according to internal documents and people familiar with the matter.
Career officials and political appointees raised concerns days before the visit that Carson's son, local businessman Ben Carson Jr., and daughter-in-law were inviting people with whom they potentially had business dealings, the documents show.
Carson Jr. put people he'd invited in touch with his father's deputies, joined agency staff on official conference calls about the listening tour and copied his wife on related email exchanges, according to emails.
"I expressed my concern that this gave the appearance that the Secretary may be using his position for his son's private gain," Linda Cruciani, HUD's deputy general counsel for operations, wrote in a July 6 memo, describing her reaction upon learning of Carson Jr.'s involvement from other staff members.
The two-page memo, obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), details conference calls and meetings that Cruciani and her colleagues had with Carson, his son and other senior HUD officials to urge that Carson Jr. not be involved in the listening tour, an event intended to give the secretary a chance to see federally supported housing projects firsthand and to convey his policy vision to the public.
The warnings highlight the extent to which Carson has relied on close family members since joining the Cabinet. His wife, Candy Carson, son Carson Jr. and daughter-in-law Merlynn Carson have attended official meetings, according to current and former HUD officials. Early last year, Candy Carson accompanied her husband around the building and to official meetings both inside and outside HUD, officials said.
Carson Jr. has continued to attend official HUD events with his father and other elected officials, including during the secretary's October trip to Baltimore's Helping Up Mission, a faith-based group that helps men facing addiction and homelessness.
Cruciani wrote that, in a meeting on June 26, two days before the listening tour was to begin, Carson initially said "it would be difficult" to have the tour in Baltimore without his son's involvement because Carson Jr. is a large employer in the region. Carson Jr. is chairman of Interprise Partners, a private equity firm that invests in and manages companies in the Mid-Atlantic.
Even so, Cruciani wrote, she and her colleagues were left believing that Carson Jr. would not be involved in the two-day tour, with the possible exception of a community event about lead exposure.
Yet all three of Carson's family members attended multiple events during the Baltimore tour, including a closed-door session on housing policy, according to a person with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ... The officials also told Cruciani that Carson Jr. and his wife asked that Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, be invited.
A little less than three months later, according to federal records, CMS awarded a $485,000 contract to the consulting company Myriddian, whose chief executive is Merlynn Carson. Carson Jr. identifies himself online as one of Myriddian's board members. The contract was awarded without a competitive bidding process, federal records show, although a CMS spokesman said multiple minority-owned firms were considered.