Sarah Huckabee Sanders rose to national prominence in part during her time at the lectern as White House press secretary, but the purchase of a $19,000 lectern for the Arkansas governor is undergoing scrutiny and prompting claims that records about it have been altered.
A legislative panel next week will take up a lawmaker’s request for an audit to review the purchase of the lectern, which was bought in June for $19,029.25 with a state credit card. The Arkansas Republican Party reimbursed the state last month for the wood-paneled and blue lectern, which the state received in August.
“From my experience, where we’re at with this particular thing is we need to allow legislative audit go in,” Republican Sen. Jimmy Hickey, who requested the audit, said. “Everyone knows them, they do their work, they’re very thorough and then they produce a detailed report that comes to the Legislature through an open committee.”
I don’t know anything about fancy lecterns, but looking at the Amazon link someone posted, I can certainly recognize particleboard with a wood-grain veneer on it… Honestly, $2k feels expensive for that, I’d say it should be about $500 at Ikea.
If Ikea made this it would be a lot less than $500. However there isn’t enough demand for Ikea to make one. With both this and Ikea you are paying for both materials and all the jigs needed to get the particle board cut to the correct size - there is a lot of engineering costs in that, and they have much less sales to spread those costs over.