Donald Trump is demanding to know who is paying for the Air Force One trip Hillary Clinton took with President Obama to North Carolina Tuesday, and so far the White House and Clinton campaign are saying only that they are splitting the bill.
Clinton, free from the threat of a Justice Department indictment, is appearing with President Obama for the first time in the race as the two visit the battleground of North Carolina on Tuesday. Trump is stumping in the state at the same time, and is hitting Clinton over the taxpayer-subsidized travel.
The billionaire businessman expressed his outrage over the use of Air Force One to boost Clinton’s campaign in a tweet Monday: “Why is President Obama allowed to use Air Force One on the campaign trail with Crooked Hillary. She is flying with him tomorrow. Who pays,” he tweeted Monday.
He followed up early Tuesday with another angry tweet: “Taxpayers are paying a fortune for the use of Air Force One on the campaign trail by President Obama and Crooked Hillary. A total disgrace!”
Federal rules, however, force the Clinton campaign, usually through the Democratic National Committee, to reimburse presidential travel and the use of Air Force One when the president travels strictly for political purposes without a speech on a separate public policy topic.
The Clinton campaign told the New York Times that it would split the cost with the White House for the purely political visit to North Carolina.
But neither the White House, nor the DNC or the Clinton campaign responded to Washington Examiner‘s inquiries asking exactly which entity will pay what portion of the trip.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters traveling with the president that the Clinton campaign will pay a normal share of the bill, through the DNC.
“The White House of course follows all of the rules and regulations that apply to presidential travel,” he said.
The Air Force estimates the cost of operating Air Force One, a modified Boeing 747, at $228,000 an hour, making the round trip to Charlotte an estimated $500,000 for Air Force One alone.
The doesn’t include the extensive work needed for such a visit, as well as Secret Service agents, vehicles and military and civilian personnel required.
Several modern-day presidents, including George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, have kept the formula for political travel reimbursements opaque, confounding even the most seasoned federal election law experts.
Brendan Doherty, a political science professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and the author of The Rise of the President’s Permanent Campaign, has complained about the lack of transparency on the reimbursement formula for years.
“Press secretaries for every recent administration say we carefully follow the laws and carefully reimburse them for this fundraising travel, but they never say how much the beneficiaries of the fundraising have to pay — it’s remarkable,” he told the Washington Examiner last year.
Despite Obama’s pledge to run the most transparent administration in history, the White House has not responded to repeated questions from the Examiner about the costs of presidential political travel and the obligations to repay the taxpayers for the trips.
A 2007 Congressional Research Service report recognized the secrecy surrounding the cost of presidential political travel and their reimbursements.
“The travel policies of specific administrations concerning the reimbursement of expenses for unofficial travel generally are not publicly available,” the report said.
