Secret Service Just Requested a FORTUNE To Protect Melania in NYC
The Secret Service has submitted its first budget request to reflect the cost of travel and protection for President Trump and his family, and it’s a doozie.
The agency requested an additional $60 million over their Obama-era budget to cover the massively rising costs associated with the extravagant lifestyle of Trump and his family, according to The Washington Post.
Almost half of the budget increase that they’re requesting would go just to protecting Trump’s family and the private residence in New York’s Trump Tower where his wife, Melania, and son, Barron, have chosen to live, despite the fact that they have a perfectly good, and already secured, taxpayer-funded home to live in at the White House.
The rest of the money would be allocated to travel costs for the President, Vice President, and visiting heads of state. The Post managed to get their hands on internal agency documents that detail their budget request.
While the actual budget for The Secret Service is not public information, making it difficult to compare the new request with the cost of protecting previous presidents, the fact that the agency was making a supplemental request indicates that their costs have skyrocketed since Trump took office.
What is perhaps even worse, however, is the fact that the White House Office of Management and Budget reportedly rejected the agency’s efforts to secure additional funding late last month. The effect will be that the Secret Service will have to cut costs in other areas to cover the increased security and travel burdens that the Trump presidency has brought. No estimate of where cuts will be made has yet to surface.
Many of the additional security dollars that the agency will have to expend will go directly into the Trump family coffers, as the Secret service pays for office space at Trump Tower and weekly visits to Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort.
Moreover, the Secret Service is not the only tax-payer funded organization spending money to protect the president. Police in both New York City and Palm Beach county have spent massive amounts of money on security for Trump and his family and are seeking federal reimbursement of costs that total over $25 million.
Of course, the Post reminded us Trump’s campaign promises:
Before taking office, Trump repeatedly criticized the cost of President Barack Obama’s travel, saying the fact that Obama’s trips were “costing taxpayers millions of dollars” was “unbelievable.” During the campaign, Trump pledged to save public money by working diligently in Washington and skipping out on expensive travel.
It seems like that was just another one of Trump’s constant lies. With Trump going to Mar-a-Lago virtually every weekend, it just goes to show that once a con man, always a con man.
