U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has become a superfan of the University of Florida football team and has spent more than $1.2 million of taxpayer money on frequent personal trips to watch them play, a report released Wednesday claims. Ethics watchdogs have questioned the need for the country’s top diplomat to travel so frequently between Washington, D.C., and Gainesville, where his son Anthony has a role as running back for the team known as the Gators. Post found that Rubio has attended at least 10 games over the past two seasons, including five this fall, and that of a total of 23 trips made to Gainesville on military aircraft, 15 were of a “personal” nature. The newspaper said that while Rubio is prohibited from flying commercially, due to security protocols that also cover the defense secretary and the directors of the FBI and CIA, his use of government transportation “appears to significantly exceed that of his predecessors.” time of different types of military aircraft, the Post estimated that the flights alone have cost more than $1.2 million. Most recently, on Nov. 7, Rubio arrived in Gainesville aboard an Air Force C-37, a plane frequently used for VIP transportation of high-ranking government officials, and was seen on the sidelines as the Gators lost 23-7 to Oklahoma. Anthony Rubio did not participate in the game. Rubio, in a statement to the Post, defended his prolific trips to Florida, which often include flights from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland to Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami, and a secondary flight from there to Gainesville. “I have tried and will continue to try to attend as many events that are important to me personally and to my family as possible,” he said. However, statistics show that Anthony Rubio, a senior and the third of his four children, has played only four competitive games in his four years in college, two of them this season. According to ESPN, he has a total of 14 carries in his college career for a combined 75 yards and a single touchdown. Officials who use military transportation must reimburse the government the equivalent of an economy fare ticket for their trip, which in each case would be far more than the actual cost of the trip. Rubio and the state department declined to say how much he has reimbursed the public purse, the Post said. Cynthia Brown, senior ethics adviser at the nonpartisan watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew), told the Post that Rubio’s trip seemed “more of an optics problem than a violation,” but said it deserved greater scrutiny. “If this trip becomes something that undermines the integrity of your service, are you really taking care of taxpayer dollars the way you are obligated to as a public official?” “It’s something I think is really important to shine a light on.” Brown noted that while Rubio might not be doing anything that is “technically inappropriate,” he is the sole arbiter of how often and how far he travels. The Post, citing two former government officials, reported that Antony Blinken, who was Joe Biden’s secretary of state, took personal trips on government planes “only a couple of times a year.” Another Biden official, then-Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, was investigated by the department’s internal watchdog for his use of government planes for personal travel after a complaint from Rubio, who at the time was a Republican senator from Florida. “American taxpayers deserve assurances that the highest government officials do not waste their tax dollars,” Rubio wrote in his lawsuit. for review. The inspector general ultimately cleared Buttigieg, who made eight trips costing a total of $59,000, of any wrongdoing. Dylan Johnson, deputy secretary of state, said in a post on X on Wednesday that comparing Rubio and Buttigieg was “stupid.” wrote.”Pete Buttigieg [was] He is not a mandatory user of military aircraft.” Johnson said Rubio would continue to use government transportation and will reimburse the government “for all personal travel.”[He] “He is completely unapologetic and will continue to attend as many family events as his job allows, including his son’s soccer games during his final year of college football,” he said. The Guardian has contacted Crew and the State Department for comment.
