House Democrats have requested “documentation and information” they suspect shows the Trump Organization overcharged the Secret Service over the course of numerous stays at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club.
In a letter sent to Secret Service Director James Murray, Democratic Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York and Jackie Speier of California, lawmakers on the House Oversight Committee, hope to gain insight that exposes payment records between the Trump Organization and the Secret Service. The letter also asks for any documentation showing how much taxpayer money the Secret Service spent on properties Trump owns.
The committee highlights comments made by Trump’s son, Eric Trump, who told Yahoo last year that the Secret Service “stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping … it saves a fortune because if they were to go to a hotel across the street, they’d be charging them $500 a night, whereas, you know we charge them, like $50.”
The letter cites a Feb 7. report by the Washington Post claiming the Trump organization charged $650 a night to stay at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club.
The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office recently disclosed errors in the Secret Service filing of costs and said the Secret Service had been charged $13.6 million over the course of four trips to Mar-a-Lago in 2017.
The Secret Service is required to send an expenditure report to Congress twice a year but has only sent one report per year since Trump took office. Of the three reports given to Congress, none have included payments made to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club or his Bedminster Golf Club in New Jersey, where the Secret Service allegedly paid $17,000 a month to rent out a three-bedroom cottage on Trump’s property.
