COMMANDER & THIEF: Trump charged his Secret Service detail 4x the rate to stay at hotels he owned
Ex-President Donald Trump charged the Secret Service inflated rates to stay at his properties while they were doing their jobs protecting Trump and his family. Expense records obtained by Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) reveal that the Trump Organization billed the Trump family’s security details at rates significantly higher than the approved government rate.
At least $1.4 million has been paid to properties owned by the ex-President by the federal government.
According to The Washington Post,
“In April 2017, when Eric Trump and his wife, Lara, were staying at the Trump International Hotel in D.C., the president’s company charged the Secret Service agents $1,160 — more than four times the government rate at the time — the records show.”
“In November 2017, when Donald Trump, Jr., stayed at the same hotel, the government was charged $1,185 a night for his security detail staying overnight at the hotel to protect him — almost six times the government rate, which varies based on time and location,” The Washington Post also reported.
Chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Congresswoman Maloney opened an investigation into potential financial improprieties – seeking to know just how much the then-president and his companies profited off the agents assigned to protect him. In a letter to newly-appointed (and appropriately-named) Secret Service Director, Kimberly Cheatle, Representative Maloney wrote:
“The exorbitant rates charged to the Secret Service and agents’ frequent stays at Trump-owned properties raise significant concerns about the former President’s self-dealing and may have resulted in a taxpayer-funded windfall for former President Trump’s struggling businesses.”
This isn’t the first time ex-President Trump has come under scrutiny for potential conflicts of interest regarding his properties. In 2019, the House Oversight Committee investigated military spending at the former commander-in-chief’s Turnberry resort in Scotland, POLITICO reported.
After Trump took office, the military reportedly spent close to $200,000 between 2017 and 2019 at Trump Turnberry, according to a letter addressed from the Department of Defense to the committee confirming the costs.
Eric Trump, son of the former President and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, has denied overcharging his father’s security detail, saying, according to The Washington Post:
“If my father travels, they stay at our properties free,” he said. “So everywhere that he goes, if he stays at one of his places, the government actually spends, meaning it saves a fortune because if they were to go to a hotel across the street, they’d be charging them $500 a night, whereas, you know we charge them, like $50.”
Unfortunately for Eric, records indicate that this is blatantly false.
But, that didn’t stop Eric Trump’s attempts to gaslight, claiming Trump International would have been “better off” if they rented the rooms to “full-paying guests.”
Representative Maloney further wrote in her letter to Director Cheatle:
“Given the long-standing concerns surrounding the former President’s conflicts of interest and efforts to profit off the presidency, the committee has a strong interest in obtaining a complete accounting of federal government spending at Trump properties. The Committee continues to examine potential legislation to prevent presidential self-dealing and profiteering, as well as to curb conflicts of interest by ensuring that future presidents are prevented from exercising undue influence on Secret Service spending.”
American taxpayers being grifted by the Trump Crime Family is neither new nor surprising. He used his position as President like an ATM card, and the United States government was his piggy bank. Unfortunately, as horrible as it is – potential emoluments clause violations are at the bottom of Trump’s list of egregious anti-American crimes.
Original reporting by Carol Leonnig at The Washington Post.
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