Is The Us Government Being Charged For Secret Service At Marlago
Why Would a Billionaire Accuse the Secret Service $650 a Night?
Half dozen theories for why Donald Trump insists on billing taxpayers
About the author: David A. Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
Final year, Eric Trump was asked virtually Secret Service protection at Trump Organization properties.
"If my male parent travels, they stay at our properties for gratis," he said. "So everywhere that he goes, if he stays at i of his places, the government actually spends, meaning information technology saves a fortune because if they were to get to a hotel beyond the street, they'd exist charging them $500 a dark, whereas, yous know we charge them, similar $50."
You volition be stunned to learn that this is not remotely true.
Instead, equally the indefatigable David Fahrenthold and three colleagues at The Washington Mail service chronicle in his latest scoop on the president's business, the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service (in other words, the taxpayer) $400 to $650 a night to stay at Mar-a-Lago while guarding the president. At another Trump property, his golf game course in Bedminster, New Jersey, the Hugger-mugger Service was billed $17,000 a month for a small cottage, even when the president wasn't present. These are simply snapshots. Despite heroic public-records piece of work by the Post, there'due south still no complete pic of just what the Trump Organisation is charging the Undercover Service.
Information technology'southward no longer news per se that the Trump Organisation is profiteering from the presidency. Since Donald Trump refused to divest from his business at the start of his term, that's been inevitable. There'south the massive emoluments scandal of the Trump International Hotel in D.C. There are Trump's Irish gaelic backdrop, at which he "invited" the vice president to stay, then charged taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. At that place was his shameless choice to agree the G7 summit at Trump Doral—a decision and so universally reviled that the White House quickly reversed it. One of the arguments the administration offered for picking Doral was that it would allow savings on security. "He's not making any money off of this, but like he's non making any money from working here," insisted Interim White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney. The new Post story shows that was almost certainly false.
New or not, the question remains: Why does a billionaire charge the Underground Service $650 to stay at his property?
The issue is not whether taxpayers should pay for presidential protection. They should, unequivocally. The question is nigh the cost. As the Post notes, other presidents who allowed the Secret Service to use their properties, including both George Bushes and Bill Clinton, didn't charge them. None of those presidents owned a for-profit business while serving as president either.
Possibly only Trump knows the answer to why he's charging so much. But here are a few theories equally to why and then rich a man would gouge his bodyguards and constituents.
The president is simply a penny-pinching cheapo. In 1990, Spy started mailing progressively more than minuscule checks to rich people to meet who would go through the trouble of cashing them. Merely two people cashed the smallest checks, for 13 cents: an arms dealer, and Donald Trump. Trump is the kind of guy who, while running a huge real-estate business organization, routinely stiffed contractors out of four-figure checks. Why wouldn't he squeeze every cent out of this too?
The profiteering is the point (with apologies to my colleague Adam Serwer). Trump's presidential run was conceived of more as a publicity stunt than a serious policy initiative. He set out to brand money, and if winning the election wasn't really office of the plan, that didn't hateful information technology didn't contribute to the ultimate goal.
Information technology's about defiance. And then many of Trump's actions can hands be explained as trolling, or at least as a kiss-off. If you lot tell him he can't do something, he'll exercise it. What other explanation is there for announcing, in the midst of an impeachment investigation over abuse of power, that you lot'll directly a major international summit to your own resort? Some people will be appalled past the charges, but there's nothing they tin can do. When you're a president, they let you exercise it. You tin can practice annihilation.
He feels he'south entitled. The extravagant charges are hypocritical considering Trump has made a great show of donating his presidential salary. He has insisted that the presidency is a money loser for him, depriving him of a chance to brand money elsewhere. It's incommunicable to appraise this merits—Trump hasn't released documents to back information technology upward, and his reputation for honesty speaks for itself. It does appear that political backlash against the president has hurt business at some of his properties, though. Trump may view the coin he makes from the Surreptitious Service as the least taxpayers tin do to mitigate his selfless sacrifices in making America bully again, and a meager return for him.
He's non really a billionaire. The Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg was recently asked whether Americans actually wanted to watch 2 billionaires fight on Twitter. "Two billionaires? Who's the 2nd ane?" Bloomberg quipped. Questions about Trump's real net worth accept circulated for years. When the journalist Tim O'Brien (now a Bloomberg adviser) reported in 2005 that Trump was worth more like $250 million, Trump sued him for $five billion. (The accommodate was dismissed.) Whenever any investigation has gotten near Trump's business organisation, he'southward gone ballistic. Or peradventure the amend explanation is that …
He'southward a paper billionaire with a cash-menstruation problem. Trump may well be worth billions on newspaper, but his empire is congenital on borrowing; he once chosen himself the king of debt. That ways he has to service his loans, for which he needs cash. But several of his businesses seem to be struggling to bring in money, which could hateful he struggles to movement greenbacks out the door likewise. Equally the Postal service previously reported, Doral is one of several properties that has seen its income tank. Revenue has also fallen at some of his hotels.
One of the few hotels that seems to be thriving is the Trump International Hotel in D.C. (though even it has its own struggles). Yet the Trump Organization is looking to sell the charter on the hotel, for a record sum. On newspaper that seems illogical: Why would the Trump Organization sell a property that'southward thriving? And if information technology'due south thriving because of its connexion to the president, why would another operator pay a huge price for value that will dry up once it'south sold? One answer would be that the Trump Organization is seeking a big greenbacks infusion, so that it can continue to service its debts.
Charging $650 a dark for Hugger-mugger Service agents doesn't add together up to the reported $500 million asking toll for the D.C. hotel. Simply Trump has spent roughly a third of his presidency staying at his ain properties, and all the nights there beginning to add up to a steady stream of cash coming in, from captive buyers. But how much is unclear, though, considering neither the Trump Arrangement nor the government will tell.
Is The Us Government Being Charged For Secret Service At Marlago,
Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/why-does-billionaire-charge-secret-service-650-night/606253/
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