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ARTICLE · 10 OCTOBER 2011

The $16 Muffin

It only took only hours for the "$16 Muffin" to enter the Washington political lexicon – right beside the $500 Pentagon hammer and the Bridge To Nowhere.

United StatesStrategy

It only took only hours for the "$16 Muffin" to enter the Washington political lexicon – right beside the $500 Pentagon hammer and the Bridge To Nowhere. The diatribes about government waste came fast and loud, from the halls of Congress to the pages of the Post and Times. The only problem: it wasn't true.

The source seemed impeccable: the well-respected Inspector General of the Department of Justice, whose 148-page audit report mentioned the muffins nine times. The IG reported that taxpayer money was squandered on muffins served at a Washington hotel for a five-day conference in 2009 for the Justice Department to train 534 judges, lawyers and paralegals on the rules for deporting immigrants.

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