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| Topic | House inquiry: Trump was charging secret service exorbitant rates at his hotels |
| CableZL 10/17/22 5:15:49 PM #1: | https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/17/us/politics/trump-hotels-secret-service.html WASHINGTON The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting former President Donald J. Trump and his family, according to documents released on Monday by the House Oversight Committee, forcing a federal agency to pay well above government rates. The committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the department to Trump properties since Mr. Trump took office in 2017. The committee said that the accounting was incomplete, however, because it did not include payments to Mr. Trumps foreign properties where agents accompanied his family repeatedly and because the records stopped in September 2021. The records the panel managed to obtain provided new details about an arrangement in which Mr. Trump and his family effectively turned the Secret Service into a captive customer of their business by visiting their properties hundreds of times, and then charging the government rates far above its usual spending limits for their protectors to follow. The records also make clear that Mr. Trumps son Eric who ran the family business while his father was in office provided a misleading account of what his company was charging. In 2019, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization charged the government only like $50 for hotel rooms during presidential visits. Instead, records obtained by the committee showed, the Trump International Hotel in Washington repeatedly charged the Secret Service rates more than $600 per night. In one case, the hotel charged the Secret Service $1,160 a night for a room used while protecting Eric Trump in 2017. That was more than four times higher than the governments usual spending limit for Washington hotels but Secret Service officials approved, the records show. The same year, the records showed, Mr. Trumps hotel in Washington charged the service $1,185 for a room used while guarding Donald Trump Jr. Per diem rates could not be obtained, a Secret Service record said, referring to the governments official maximum rate. By law, the department is allowed to exceed those maximum payments when its protective mission requires. Previously, the highest rate that the Trump Organization was known to have charged the government for a hotel room was $650 per night, for rooms at Mr. Trumps Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. --- https://i.imgtc.com/d9Fc4Qq.gif https://i.imgtc.com/BKHTxYq.gif https://i.imgtc.com/vYYIuDx.jpg ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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