Holder racked up $1.45M travel tab in 2011, documents show

Attorney General Eric Holder took trips that cost taxpayers $1.45 million in 2011, according to documents revealed by Bloomberg News on Friday.

Bloomberg found that in 2011, Holder took a partly personal trip on a government jet to Las Vegas that cost taxpayers $46,358. Several other strictly personal trips cost the government at total of $169,502.

The Justice Department took more than a year to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg for the travel records, the outlet said. The report comes on a day when Holder is expected to unveil new guidelines for Justice Department monitoring of journalists. 

{mosads}Holder came under congressional fire in February for billing the government for expensive personal travel.

A Government Accountability Office report revealed that Holder, two predecessors and Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Robert Mueller had cost the government $11 million for travel from 2007-2011. 

In the case of personal travel, certain officials are required to use government aircraft and then reimburse the government for the equivalent of much cheaper coach airfare.

“Nobody disputes that the Attorney General and the FBI Director should have access to the secure communications, but, for instance, there’s no reason they can’t take a less-expensive mode of transportation or cut their personal travel,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said when the GAO report emerged.