Chief of staff Adorni in hot water for taking his wife on official trip

The Argentine government’s chief of staff, Manuel Adorni, has come under fire for including his wife in the presidential entourage that accompanied Javier Milei to Argentina Week, a high-level diplomatic and financial summit held in New York between March 9-12 to attract international investment to Argentina. Opposition deputies submitted a request for information to the lower house, after Adorni confirmed during an interview that his spouse, Bettina Angeletti, was “invited by the President’s office” to join the official delegation. “The truth is, it was my wish that she would accompany me,” he told journalist Eduardo Feinmann, from A24 news channel, speaking from New York. “I’m coming to work my tail off for a week or five days in the United States, and I wanted my wife to come with me because she’s my life partner,” he explained. According to the official, the fact that his wife traveled on the presidential plane and stayed with him at a five star hotel did not involve any additional cost to the Argentine taxpayer. “We didn’t take a single peso from the State,” he asserted. Critics highlighted that just a week ago, the office of the Chief of Staff issued an Administrative Decision that limited official trips abroad to a maximum of one official per international event or activity, to optimize resources.  The measure requires substantiated justification for expanding delegations and establishes that the chief of staff is the person responsible for approving the transfer of ministers or other officials in equivalent positions.  The presence of Bettina Angeletti, who works as an ontological coach, in New York was discovered by chance, when a journalist recognized her in photographs taken during the official delegation’s visit to the tomb of the Lubavitch Rebbe in Queens, as part of Javier Milei’s trip to the United States. This prompted a request for information from the opposition to determine who paid for the trip, what role Angeletti played, and whether any potential conflicts of interest were assessed.  According to Clarín newspaper, Adorni’s wife was not the only spouse accompanying the Argentine officials in New York. Foreign Minister Pablo Quirno’s wife, Josefina, also joined the group. However, the Foreign Ministry clarified that Quirno’s partner — who had also accompanied him on official trips to Rome and Munich — did not travel on the presidential plane, is not part of the official delegation, and had been in the U.S. for a week.