Trump appoints his family's event planner to oversee federal housing programs

(Image credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

published 16 June 2017

The words "must," "have," and "experience" usually appear together in the average job listing, but that's not a deal-breaker for the Trump administration.

On Wednesday, Lynne Patton, the former vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation who started planning events for the Trump family in 2009, was appointed to head the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Region II office, the largest one in the country, which covers New York and New Jersey, the New York Daily News reports. In this role, Patton — who appeared at the Republican National Convention last year and put together a video titled "I'm proof Donald Trump isn't a bigot" — will be in charge of the distribution of billions in taxpayer funds to public housing authorities and tens of thousands of rental vouchers, plus block grants.

The Daily News decided to do some digging around on Patton, and after scouring her LinkedIn profile, found that in addition to having zero housing experience, she embellished the section about her education — Patton said she obtained a juris doctorate degree from Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut in 2000, although "next to the J.D. notation is written (N/A) without explanation," the Daily News noted. The paper called up the school's registrar, who revealed that Patton attended for two semesters, but did not graduate. Patton also listed Yale University on her page, and HUD officials were unable to explain why, the Daily News reports. Patton, who starts on July 5, did not return the Daily News' phone calls seeking a comment.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.