Report: Secret Service has spent practically $500,000 at Trump properties

New reporting about taxpayer expenditures at Trump properties suggests President Donald Trump and his household are making a ton of cash off the presidency — and it makes their allegations of “corruption” concerning the Bidens ring hole.

The Washington Put up reported on Friday that Secret Service information obtained from a wide range of sources present practically $500,000 in funds to the president’s corporations since he took workplace, together with $650 per evening prices for rooms at Mar-a-Lago and $17,000 a month above-market-rate prices for a three-bedroom cottage at Trump Nationwide Golf Membership Bedminster, New Jersey. And it’s doubtless there have been further funds to Trump’s corporations that aren’t public information, because the Secret Service has stonewalled efforts from Democrats to get a full accounting.

From the Put up’s David Fahrenthold, Jonathan O’Connell, Carol Leonnig, and Josh Dawsey:

Trump’s firm says it prices solely minimal charges. However Secret Service information don’t present that.

At Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Membership, the Secret Service was charged the $650 price dozens of occasions in 2017, and a unique price, $396.15, dozens extra occasions in 2018, in accordance with paperwork from Trump’s visits.

An elected official utilizing his workplace to financially profit his household is principally the textbook definition of corruption, and the Put up’s new reporting is just the newest chapter within the ongoing saga of the Trump family normalizing self-dealing in a manner unprecedented in American history. However in an particularly shameless show, Donald Trump and his eldest son repeatedly attacked the Bidens for his or her purported corruption on Thursday, simply hours earlier than the Put up’s report dropped.

Throughout his bonkers post-impeachment acquittal victory lap speech at the White House, President Trump justified his efforts to strongarm the Ukrainian authorities into saying investigations of the Bidens by saying, “I most likely have a authorized obligation to report corruption.” He unfavorably contrasted Hunter Biden’s profitable position on the board of a Ukrainian fuel firm with what his personal children are as much as, claiming “my children may make a fortune” in the event that they did the identical.

The irony is that the Trump youngsters have made a fortune from foreign dealings, and never simply earlier than their dad took workplace. In October, Forbes reported that Eric and Donald Jr. have offered greater than $100 million of the household’s actual property because the January 2017 inauguration — together with a $3.2 million deal within the Dominican Republic in 2018 that’s “the clearest violation of their father’s pledge to do no new overseas offers whereas in workplace.” Overseas cash has additionally poured into the Trump International Hotel, situated simply blocks from the White Home, which the president’s most up-to-date monetary disclosure indicated made him $41 million in 2018 alone.

Shamelessness, nonetheless, seems to be a trait Trump shares together with his youngsters. On Thursday night, Donald Trump Jr. went on Laura Ingraham’s Fox Information present and attacked Hunter Biden, saying, “Hunter Biden could make thousands and thousands from the Ukraine, however I’m fairly certain they’d have an issue with Donald Trump Jr doing it.”

Many Democrats do certainly object to the Trump household’s corruption. However with regard to Secret Service expenditures on the president’s properties, they’ve been unable to resolve it as a result of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has refused to disclose the pertinent records till after the 2020 election.

Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) advised the Put up that Trump has been “attempting to cover the small print from the general public, as a result of he is aware of how unhealthy it seems. That’s the reality of it. He’s a billionaire, however we’re spending thousands and thousands of {dollars} to assist his for-profit golf equipment and for-profit companies.”

Not solely are Republicans unbothered by the Trump administration’s lack of transparency about taxpayer expenditures at their properties, however in an particularly ironic twist, they’re serving to the Trump’s household efforts to gin up a scandal concerning the Bidens.

Republicans Sens. Chuck Grassley (IA) and Ron Johnson (WI) not too long ago requested the Secret Service flip over information of expenditures associated to Hunter Biden’s safety when his father was vice chairman. And whereas the Treasury Division has stonewalled Democratic efforts to resolve what it’s costing taxpayers to guard the Trump household at properties they nonetheless personal and revenue from, the Treasury Division immediately turned over the Hunter Biden records.

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