The Secret Service paid as much as five times the government rate for agents staying at former President Donald Trump’s properties to protect the president and his family, reaching upwards of $1.4 million over four years, new billing records show.
Trump’s company billed agents up to $1,185 a night to stay at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., one of dozens of cases in which the Secret Service paid above the government-approved range.
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The records obtained by Congress indicate a cost to U.S. taxpayers of at least $1.4 million, according to figures first reported by the Washington Post.
Secret Service supervisors frequently requested waivers to allow the agency to pay more than the government-approved rate for stays at Washington, D.C., hotels, the Washington Post reported. The documents cover Trump’s four years in office and through September 2021. They do not include all payments to Trump’s companies.
“The exorbitant rates charged to the Secret Service and agents’ frequent stays at Trump-owned properties raise significant concerns about the former President’s self-dealing and may have resulted in a taxpayer-funded windfall for former President Trump’s struggling businesses,” House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) wrote in a letter to the agency director on Monday.
Trump frequently traveled to hotel properties operated by his company while in office, including Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, and the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Not all officers stayed at his properties.
The records call into question a claim by Trump’s son Eric Trump that the Trump Organization often provided the Secret Service hotel rooms at cost, at a steep discount, or free.
In 2019, Eric Trump said that when Trump travels, agents “stay at our properties free.”
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He said in 2020 that rooms were provided to the government at below-market rates.
“We provide the rooms at cost and could make far more money renting them to members or guests,” Eric Trump said.
