🚨Secret Service reveals more charges by Trump properties, including for rooms at N.J. club while it was closed for pandemic washingtonpost.com/politics/secre…
President Trump’s luxury properties have charged the U.S. government more than $1.1 million in private transactions since Trump took office — including for room rentals at his Bedminster, N.J., club this spring while it was closed for the coronavirus pandemic, new documents show.
In Bedminster this spring Trump’s club charged Secret Service more than $21,800 to rent a cottage & rooms while the club was closed & off-limits to guests. Trump didn’t visit the club while it was closed but 🚨Ivanka Trump, & her family reportedly visited at least once🚨.
The family visited in April to celebrate Passover, a period that overlaps with several of the largest Secret Service charges. At the time, both D.C. and New Jersey imposed “stay-at-home” orders, telling residents to avoid travel except under limited circumstances.
The receipts and invoices shed new light on the unprecedented relationship Trump has with his own government — where Trump’s presidential travel brings a stream of public money to the private businesses that the president still owns.
When Trump and his family members visit Trump properties, aides and Secret Service agents follow. When those federal employees rent rooms, Trump’s businesses get the revenue. Taxpayers foot the bill. The bills are usually paid in private, with no public disclosure.
“The waste inherent in this is appalling,” Lisa Gilbert of the watchdog group Public Citizen said, especially during a pandemic that has brought economic ruin and stretched federal budgets. “They’re nickel-and-diming the American people. At a moment when every penny counts.”
Before he took office Trump said he would be “completely isolating” himself from business interests. He didn’t. Instead he visited his properties 274 times, promoted them on Twitter, encouraged Pence to visit them & briefly chose one of them to host a summit of world leaders.
Documents show the Trump Organization has charged as much as $650 per night, plus additional charges. Agents guarding Pence were charged $29-per-night “resort fees” at Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas. In Scotland, Trump’s resort charged Secret Service $1,300 to move furniture.
The records show that Trump Bedminster charged the Secret Service $17,000 a month — or $567 per night — to rent the three-bedroom “Sarazen Cottage” near Trump’s own villa. That rate charged is unusually high for a rental home in the area.
New documents show that the rentals lasted much longer than previously known. Instead of lasting only for the summer months, when Trump usually visited, the rentals stretched from May to the end of October.
Secret Service paid rent in Bedminster for more than 200 days when Trump wasn’t there, also at Mar-a-Lago. Trump’s unpredictable travel led agents to rent rooms in case he decided to visit. The result was double benefit for Trump: He got paid when he visited & when he didn’t.
But this spring marked the first known instance of a Trump club billing the government while it was closed. The Bedminster club temporarily closed down operations on March 17, after Murphy imposed new restrictions on businesses and social gatherings because of the pandemic.
Through April, the club remained shuttered but charges continued. In fact, Secret Service appears to have been charged for even more rooms than usual: not just a Cottage, but one or two additional rooms as well. The rates for the extra suites ranged from $142 to $283 per night.
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