President Donald Trump has just announced that his longtime family friend, Lynne Patton, will run the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Region II, which oversees housing programs in New York and New Jersey.
Patton has been serving as an “event planner” for the Trump family since 2009 and even handled Eric Trump’s wedding. She also helped to run the Eric Trump Foundation from 2011 up until January, and organization that lately has come under fire for allegedly misusing funds that were supposed to go to charity.
On her LinkedIn page, Patton claimed to have a juris doctorate degree from Quinnipiac University School of Law in Connecticut, though the school registrar, Jim Benson, said that Patton had only attended for two semesters and did not graduate. She also lists Yale University on her profile, but HUD officials could not say why that was listed.
Patton has been in the spotlight as one of the few African-Americans in Trump’s inner circle and last year made a video called “I’m proof Donald Trump isn’t a bigot.”
She also recently defended HUD Secretary Ben Carson after he claimed that poverty was a state of mind, lambasted James Comey for being a leaker, and blasted Kathy Griffin over her infamous picture posing with the severed head of Donald Trump.