It’s been reported that former president Donald Trump charged the Secret Service more than $10,000 for rooms in his New Jersey golf resort in the month of May alone.
Why isn’t there a law or something preventing such obvious grifting against the federal government? Hell, at one point during the early part of Trump’s presidency, the Secret Service had to stop paying some of its agents so that it would have enough money to cover Trump’s ridiculous bills.
Secret Service should have said, you charge for rent, then we charge for protection.
The Secret Service should stay in regular hotel rooms with the same rate limit as for other government employees on travel. If they are staying for a few weeks, expect a big discount over daily prices, or find another place.
Is it that Trump wants protection out of sight but in the next room over? If that is it (and I don’t know that it is) that service should not be offered.
If Trump does’t want them using his loo, that’s totally unacceptable.
A protectorate is a dependent country, not a person, btw.
Okay, a protectoree then?
I believe it’s protectee.
I think this is a case both of Trump doing something unprecedented, and taking advantage.
I think Secret Service would normally stay in the surrounding rooms if a protectee is in a hotel. And they sometimes build on the grounds of a protectee’s house. But normally, the protectee doesn’t live in a ridiculously expensive hotel that they also own.
What happens with Obama, Bush or Clinton when they’re staying in a hotel? Is the Secret Service in rooms on either side and across the hall? And is the Secret Service paying the standard room rate, or whatever rate their procurement office can negotiate?
Trump should be treated exactly the same as the last three presidents. It’s unusual for a President to be staying at a resort hotel that he owns. But there’s no law saying that he can’t, or forbidding him from charging rent just like any other hotel owner. Why isn’t there a law? Probably because past Congresses had better things to make laws about.
There’s a whole “emoluments” thing in the Constitution (two, actually) to deter profiting from one’s office, but to be fair I believe that only applies to sitting Presidents.
Also, ISTR Biden (as VP) renting a house to the Secret Service agents in Delaware.
The real question is what options the SS have if their protectee opts to actively gouge them (and the taxpayers) to live near him or her.
Trump should have been called on this while he was president and should have rightfully been removed via impeachment and thus denied SS protection for life (and perhaps tried for treason). Doing the right things would have solved this Trump problem a while back, but our elected representatives, using our political system as presented didn’t pursue this to it’s logical conclusion. It’s costing us plenty due to their inaction to look out for the interests of we the people, but so are many government boondoggles.
At this time I think it’s a number’s game. What is the more reasonable option, pay very high rates or stay further away and accept a possible hit to security.
Obama and Clinton stayed in hotels and the SS had to rent rooms to protect them. But Obama and Clinton didn’t own the hotels and weren’t grifters out to make a buck. Perhaps the hotels charged the SS full rack rate, perhaps less depending on demand while you can bet your sweet ass DJT always collected full rack rate from the SS. .
He literally doubled the fees at Mar-A-Lago, and charged the SS full price.
I think it should be allowed in general, but I also think there may be some reforms to the overall system.
My understanding is for their highest tier protectees (Presidents / Vice Presidents, immediate family of POTUS etc–but not some of their lesser known protectees like the WH Chief of Staff, some Cabinet Secretaries etc) it is not uncommon that the large teams involved in the protective detail have “on site command centers.” For example if a President is staying in a resort, there will be a Secret Service command center on site, ideally within x number of feet of the President., so the need for these rooms isn’t a matter of Trump not wanting the agents to use their bathroom, or agents on rotation not being able to commute from a nearby (cheaper) hotel.
It is in this context that both Biden (as Vice President) and Trump (as President and now Former President) have charged the Secret Service for use of their space. Within the current framework I don’t think Trump is or was wrong to charge them, I do think the fact it appears he actually jacked up the rates they paid is shitty behavior and should not have been allowed.
To remove Trump from the equation, the logic of this system is because in theory you shouldn’t “have to be rich” to be an elected official. For example several Presidents left office relatively low assets / income (Nixon, Clinton in the 20th/early 21st century), both immediately became massively wealthy. But had they not, they likely would have needed an on site command center at their residence. Imagine they had a guest house that they now lost use of 24/7/365, they’re basically have to pay that cost because they incurred a lifetime security risk due to being President.
The reality is all the former Presidents have been wealthy enough fairly quickly that this is a hypothetical, but it’s at least worth considering. Nixon actually made enough from his book and interview deals that by the mid-1980s he was comfortable dismissing his Secret Service protection, and used private security for the remainder of his life.
The worst part is that when Trump was at Mar-A-Lago, there was a special surcharge for staying in a room that was near the president and the secret service paid the full rate including that surcharge. They should have set up a tent on the lawn.
We all know how notoriously cheap old Donnie is. As I understand it, the White House keeps very careful accounting of the groceries consumed by the First Family and every month they present a bill to the First Lady. I’d love to know if they ever paid a single one of those bills, my bet is no they haven’t. Not sure if this is FOIA-able or not.
Your cites do not support the claim. The first article notes that Trump doubled the membership fees at Mar-a-Lago in 2017–nothing about the Secret Service
The second article mentions that while on the golf course, the Secret Service had to rent special golf carts from a private vendor, not the normal ones from the Trump course, because they had to be equipped to travel faster in case of an emergency.
What a fucking coincidence.
I’d go beyond that: Secret Service should be allowed to stay for free at Trump’s expense.