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For example , during Espy 's June 23 , 1994 interview with the FBI , he acknowledged that the Secretary of Agriculture could not accept gifts from individuals or companies regulated by USDA but advised , in substance , that he did not concern himself with " prohibited sources " because he had schedulers and staffers who watched over his travel and other activities to ensure his compliance with ethics regulations and the Meat Inspection Act. Espy 's counsel reiterated this argument at his trial , emphasizing that the Secretary 's office was " in chaos " during 1993 and suggesting that this instability contributed to inadvertent ethical errors . The expenditures at issue here were not " legitimate state expenditures under an approved Medicaid plan " because they were payments to individuals not eligible for the federal-state cooperative Medicaid program .