Former president Donald Trump has charged US taxpayers at least $1.75m so Secret Service agents assigned to protect him could stay with him at facilities owned by his eponymous real estate company, according to government records obtained by a watchdog group.
According to Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, Mr Trump’s habit of staying at his own hotels and visiting his own properties caused the US Secret Service to spent at least $400,000 at Trump-branded hotels, another $850,000 at his various golf clubs, and an additional $300,000 at Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach mansion turned private club where Mr Trump has resided since his term in office expired.
The group obtained the figures on Secret Service expenditures at Mr Trump’s properties through Freedom of Information Act requests.
In a blog post announcing the spending numbers, CREW said the Secret Service began spending federal funds at Mr Trump’s properties shortly after he became the Republican nominee for president in 2016. The group added that the actual amount spent at Mr Trump’s properties could be at least $2m because some records appear to be incomplete.
Mr Trump "was using the trips to line his pockets with taxpayer money via his Secret Service protection”, it said.
It’s not unheard of for the Secret Service to spend large sums to protect presidential candidates, presidents, former presidents, or their family members, particularly when it comes to securing the use of facilities near a protectee’s residence. Recently disclosed records show, for example, that the agency is spending approximately $360,000 per year to rent a house for use as a command post by agents assigned to protect President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden.
It is also not unprecedented for a candidate or officeholder to derive some financial benefit when Secret Service agents need a place to set up shop on their property. When Mr Biden was vice president, he reportedly charged the agency to rent a cottage on his property previously used by his late mother.
According to the Washington Post, the Secret Service paid Mr Biden $2,200 per month for use of the cottage as a command post between 2011 and 2017.
Yet the scale and scope of protective operations, combined with the tendency of Mr Trump and his family members to travel to properties in their company’s portfolio and their insistence on charging the agents responsible for protecting for the privilege of doing so has no modern precedent.
The Post also reported that Mr Trump charges the agency $396.15 per night for rooms at Mar-a-Lago, which became his full-time residence when he left the White House.
Records released by the Secret Service show that added up to a total of $40,001.15 to use one room as a workspace for the first three months of his post-presidency.
