Various U.S. government agencies have paid properties owned by President Trump at least $970,000 for room rentals throughout Trump’s first term, The Washington Post reported Thursday.
The Post said that the payments included more than 1,600 nightly room rentals at Trump’s hotels and clubs. According to the paper, the rooms were for staffers and Secret Service agents that accompanied the president on his travels, not for Trump and his family.
Breaking down the nightly stats, the Post found that agencies paid for 530 nights at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Florida and 950 nights at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, N.J.
Trump has said that while he still owns the Trump Organization, he has given control of the company to his two adult sons.
In an interview with Yahoo Finance last year, Eric Trump said, “If my father travels, they stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping.” He estimated the cost per night to be around $50. In its analysis, however, the Post found no such rate for any of the rooms that the government booked.
The Post also noted that the data is incomplete, as the numbers have been released gradually in pieces from the different government agencies.
“It’s not just that there’s a huge amount of money being spent: we have no idea how much the actual figure is,” because the records are released slowly and piecemeal, Jordan Libowitz, communications director for the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Post. “We don’t know what’s happening … only that the taxpayers are footing the bill for it.”
The only other recent president or vice president that charged rent to his own Secret Service detail was former Vice President Joe Biden. Biden reportedly charged the Secret Service rent for a cottage near his Delaware home. Over six years, the agency was charged $171,600, the Post said.
The Trump Organization exceeded this total in March 2017, when Trump had been in office for less than two full months, according to the Post’s analysis.
The president’s company did not respond to the Post’s inquiries for comment.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump Organization.