US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin's wife fires back at Instagram user who criticized her wealth

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's new wife, actress Louise Linton, fired back after being criticized on social media Monday over an Instagram photo drawing attention to her wealth.

Linton posted a picture of Mnuchin and herself stepping off an Air Force plane with the caption "Great #daytrip to #Kentucky!" She went on to list several hashtags of the designer clothing brands she was wearing: "#rolandmouret, #hermesscarf, #tomford and #valentino."

Users were quick to criticize the boastful nature of the post, claiming that it was in poor taste.

Louise Linton, Sec Mnuchin's wife, posts photo that tags Hermes/Tom Ford/Valentino as she leaves Air Force Jet then replies to a critic pic.twitter.com/Uhjc7qBiEA

— Yashar Ali (@yashar) August 22, 2017

"Please don't tag your Hermes scarf. Distasteful," one user wrote.

Another user, identified by the New York Times as 45-year-old Oregon mother-of-three Emily Miller, made it clear she didn't appreciate taxpayer money being spent on the trip.

"Glad we could pay for your little getaway. #deplorable," Miller wrote.

Linton was quick to fire back at Miller, accusing her of being "out of touch" and "passive aggressive."

"Aw!!! Did you think this was a personal trip?! Adorable!” Linton wrote. "Do you think the US govt paid for our honeymoon or personal travel?! Lololol. Have you given more to the economy than me and my husband? Either as an individual earner in taxes OR in self sacrifice to your country?"

"I’m pretty sure we paid more taxes toward our day ‘trip’ than you did. Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you’d be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours," she added. "You’re adorably out of touch. Thanks for the passive aggressive nasty comment. ... Sending me passive aggressive comments isn't going to make life feel better. Maybe a nice message, one filled with wisdom and humanity would get more traction."

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Up until Monday, Linton had her Instagram account set to public, but she changed her settings to private shortly after the confrontation.

Miller told the Times that if Linton's privacy settings hadn't been changed, she would have responded to Linton's sharp words.

"If she hadn’t made her account private, I would have written back with a very snide Marie Antoinette joke," she said.

“It seems like she’s been in public life for a long time,” Miller said. “It just seemed wholly inappropriate.”

A Treasury Department official clarified that the Mnuchins reimbursed the federal government for the trip and that Linton did not receive any compensation for her usage of the designer hashtags.

Wisdom and humanity needed

Should Linton have posted the picture drawing attention to her wealth in the first place? Maybe not, but the lack of decency social media users consistently display toward public figures, simply because they are in the public eye and somehow should be able to handle the criticism, lends to the credibility of Linton's suggestion that it is, in fact, wisdom and humanity that's so desperately needed in today's polarized political climate.