Surprise: Trump Is Still Bilking Taxpayers for Thousands of Dollars a Month - Vanity Fair

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The Secret Service has been asked to pay Mar-a-Lago more than $40,000 since Trump left office.

By Bess Levin

May 21, 2021

One of Donald Trump’s least favorite things about being president was all the actual work it entailed. One of his favorite? Bilking taxpayers for millions of dollars by regularly charging the government for use of his for-profit clubs, which he insisted on visiting throughout his presidency. Last fall, for instance, The Washington Post reported that the 280 visits Trump had made to his own properties from the start of his presidency through October 2020 had cost taxpayers (as well as his political supporters) roughly $8.1 million, a not-so-insignificant sum that happened to be more than his hotels in Hawaii and Vancouver had generated in revenue during the same period. And if you thought the POTUS gig ending would have meant an end to taxpayer grift, you thought wrong.

According to a new report from the Post’s David Fahrenthold and Josh Dawsey, Mar-a-Lago, the Palm beach resort where Trump now lives and harasses wedding guests, has been charging the Secret Service $396.15 a night, every night, since January 20. That’s added up to $40,011.15 through April 30, a nice chunk of taxpayer money in the ex-president’s pocket, considering that he could have charged the Secret Service nothing but, naturally, is always out to make a buck (or 13 cents). Though former presidents get protection for life, presidential experts the Post spoke to “could not find another example of a president charging the Secret Service rent on this scale.”

Historians said they were surprised Trump was still charging the Secret Service, considering that ex-presidents are entitled to an array of other taxpayer-funded benefits, including paid staff and a $219,000-per-year pension. Trump, by his own account, is a billionaire. On his personal blog this week, he celebrated the $1.2 billion refinancing of a San Francisco office building in which Trump’s company owns a 30% share. That deal could bring Trump’s company a massive payout.

“It’s tacky,” Jeffrey A. Engel, the director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University, said of Trump’s new charges. “Just because you can make a buck doesn’t mean you should make a buck. And especially when you have a situation where you’re an ex-president. You’re not going to starve.”

Last year, in an incredible feat of reporting, the Post revealed that not only did Mar-a-Lago charge taxpayers for things like rooms for the Secret Service, as well as bar tabs and flowers for when Trump hosted world leaders at the club, but for glasses of water:

When Trump and [Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo] Abe met alone, with no food served, the government still got a bill for what they drank. “Bilateral meeting,” the bill said. “Water.” $3 each.

It’s not clear if Trump is still trying to invoice taxpayers for literal H20, but god knows he’s tried.

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