President gave $16B in 2018 ALONE to Elijah Cummings's district in federal grants': Donald Trump's aide Lynne Patton asks what Baltimore has done with its financial help as POTUS' row with 'rat-infested' city escalates An aide to President Trump said that the Baltimore region has squandered billions of dollars in federal grants given by the administration.
‘President Trump has given $16billion in 2018 alone to Elijah Cummings’ district in federal grants,’ Lynne Patton, a regional administrator with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told Fox News on Monday.
‘We have given more money in homeless funds to Baltimore than the last administration’ as well as ‘community development grants,’ according to Patton. She then took Cummings and the city leadership, including Mayor Bernard Young, to task, asking: ‘What are you actually doing with the money so that it benefits residents in the community for once instead of deep-pocket, crooked politicians?’
Cummings' district received just under $15.7billion in grants, benefits, and other aide from the federal government during fiscal year 2018, according to the Baltimore Sun.
The district, which includes just over half of Baltimore City, most of the majority African American areas of Baltimore County, and most of Howard County, is more well off than the administration claims.
The district is the second-wealthiest majority-black district in the country, with a $58,000 median household income, according to data journalist Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.
Silver cited data from the Biggest US Cities web site.
Patton was appointed to her current position after she helped run Eric Trump's charity foundation and spent eight years working closely Trump family members. Patton oversaw millions of dollars as a vice president at the Eric Trump Foundation, a charity effort Eric Trump suspended after his dad won the White House.
She forged close friendships and bonds with Trump family members in a variety of roles – and cut a 5 minute video during the campaign that passionately defended Donald Trump from 'repeated and reprehensible' attempts to connect him to 'hate-mongering groups.'
Earlier on Monday, Trump took aim at the Rev. Al Sharpton, who traveled to Baltimore in the wake of the president's tweets aimed at Cummings. Sharpton, seen above in Baltimore on Monday, shot back Trump 'has a particular venom for blacks and people of color'
Sharpton says Trump 'like a child' following Baltimore remarks
Her comments are the latest salvo in the days long simmering feud between the president and his supporters on one side and Democratic Party officials and backers on the other.
Trump in recent days has singled out Cummings, the Democratic congressman who heads the House Oversight Committee, for what he claims are decrepit conditions in Maryland’s seventh congressional district which he represents.
The district encompasses half of Baltimore as well as surrounding suburbs. The president has been slammed by critics for racism after he referred to Baltimore as ‘a rodent infested mess’ where ‘no human being’ would want to live. Trump has attacked Cummings, whose committee is investigating the administration.
On Monday, the president continued to post critical tweets of Cummings. ‘Elijah Cummings never even went to the Southern Border and then he screams at the very good people who, despite Congresses [sic] failure to fix the Loopholes and Asylum, make it work (crossings are way down and the Wall is being built),’ the president tweeted on Monday.
‘Even with zero Dem help, Border getting strong!’