The Trump Organization charged the US Secret Service up to $1,185 a night for hotel rooms in the former president’s chain used by agents protecting Donald Trump and his family. The bill forced the body to pay well above what was stipulated by the government, according to documents released this Monday (17) by the House Oversight Committee.
The collegiate released Secret Service records that indicate payments of more than $1.4 million to Trump properties since 2017, the year he assumed the presidency. According to the committee, the accounting is still incomplete, because it does not include spending on the Republican’s properties outside the US – where agents often accompanied his family – and because the data only goes through September 2021.
The filings provide new details about a scheme in which Trump effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer — using his properties hundreds of times and charging the government fees far in excess of the usual limit.
They also make it clear that one of Trump’s sons, Eric, who ran the family business while his father was in office, distorted information on the matter. In 2019, he claimed that the Trump Organization only charged the government “about $50” for hotel rooms on presidential trips.
Instead, records show that the Trump International Hotel in Washington repeatedly charged the Secret Service fees in excess of $600 a night. In a 2017 case, involving agents accompanying Eric himself, the daily rate charged was US$ 1,160 (R$ 6,126). That’s more than four times the government’s usual spending limit for hotels in Washington — yet the Secret Service approved the expenditure.
In the same year, Trump’s hotel in the US capital charged the agency US$1,185 (R$6,258) for a room used by agents protecting Donald Trump Jr. By law, the Secret Service may exceed the maximum daily rate allowed by the government, when the mission so requires.
Previously, the highest rate ever known of the Trump Organization charging the government for a hotel room was $650, for rooms at Mar-a-Lago, the former president’s golf club. in Palm Beach, Florida.
“What bothers me, over and over again, is how they lie about these things,” says Democratic Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, chair of the Oversight Committee. “Documents don’t lie.” According to her, the papers make it clear that Trump took advantage of taxpayers by demanding Secret Service agents stay on his properties and charging exorbitant fees from the government.
“This raises the concern that the Trump Organization acted in a way to profit from the presidency,” says Maloney. According to her, the committee will continue to investigate how the Republican’s businesses used the Executive to their financial advantage – especially in relation to links with foreign governments. “This may just be the tip of the iceberg.”
The Trump Organization did not comment on the case on Monday. Representatives for the company have said it charged the government “cost price” and could have made more profit by renting out the rooms to other guests.
The company continued to bill the Secret Service even after Trump left office and began to live on its properties full-time.
In 2020, The Washington Post reported that the government spent more than US$ 2.5 million (R$ 13.2 million) on the Republican’s ventures while he was in the presidency. The payments came from various government agencies and were largely motivated by Trump’s travels.
The State Department, for example, paid thousands of dollars to the Mar-a-Lago club for expenses related to the politician’s meetings with foreign leaders held there — including expenses for flowers, food and even glasses of water.
The White House paid Mar-a-Lago, for example, more than US$ 1,000 (R$ 5,280) for 54 drinks consumed by aides to the former president in a private bar, as reported by ProPublica.
And the Secret Service paid daily for its agents to accompany the family on trips to the politician’s company properties across the country and the world – many of them refer to the former president’s visits to Mar-a-Lago and the Trump National Golf Club. , in Bedminster, New Jersey.
In the latter, the agency even paid the Trump Organization US$17,000 a month, an unusually high rent for the region, to use a “cottage” on the golf club’s grounds.
The Secret Service even paid the Republican’s company for per diems for agents who accompanied other government officials, including Mike Pence and Steven Mnuchin, then vice president and secretary of the Treasury, respectively.
Records obtained by the House Oversight Committee show that the Secret Service made at least 669 payments to Trump’s firm, Maloney reported Monday in a public letter to agency director Kimberly A. Cheatle. The agency did not comment.
Trump continued to own his companies while he was in the presidency, although he said he passed day-to-day management of them to his children. The charges made by the Trump Organization do not violate the Constitution, according to ethicists, as presidents are largely immune to conflict of interest laws that apply to other federal officials.
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