New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham poured taxpayer dollars into booze and hosted in-person staff meetings while punishing her state’s citizens for gatherings with more than one household, Fox News reported.
Over six months months last year, Grisham spent $13,500 on a wide array of alcohol, dry-cleaning services, and groceries.
A single alcohol purchase in September cost more than $200 and consisted of “five bottles of tequila, two bottles of vodka, two bottles of Merlot and single bottles of whiskey and gin.”
Grisham stood out as one the nation’s most arbitrary and tyrannical leaders during the height of the coronavirus hysteria.
The governor’s office fined Christian churches $10,000 for holding “illegal and selfish gatherings” on Christmas Eve.
The newly discovered hypocrisy of hosting in-person meetings at the governor’s mansion, while forcing businesses, churches, and schools to close, confirms her earlier behavior.
In the spring, after ordering businesses to close on April 3, Grisham ordered jewelry from Lilly Barrack and had a staffer pick it up.
About half of the $13,500 went toward food for staffers at the governor’s mansion meetings.
Grisham defender herself at a video news conference, saying a “woman who works here, [who] is a rock star,” spent the unauthorized taxpayer money.
“I don’t want New Mexicans to feel like I don’t take seriously their hardship,” she said.
New Mexico’s Republican leaders said Grisham improperly used the money, in violation of a 2019 law passed by her Republican predecessor that limits how the governor can spend discretionary funds.
“I didn’t realize the governor was so underpaid that she has to use discretionary money for things that she should be paying for herself,” state House Minority Whip Rod Montoya told the New Mexican. “Legislators are all up here doing our job, and we’re doing it on per diem.”
To keep New Mexicans under a boot, Grisham profits $170,000 a year.
Legislators make $184 per diem, $0.58 per mile driven, and a pension of about $1,000 a year.
“It’s not what tax dollars ought to be spent for,” New Mexico House Minority Leader Jim Townsend of Artesia told the paper. “In a time when people are hurting all over the state, using their tax dollars to buy Wagyu beef has got to be a little bit disenchanting to many people.”
