The grifter keeps on gritting and Americans are still paying for his expenses.
You’re still paying for Trump’s visits to his N.J. golf club. Here’s the cost to taxpayers.
Donald Trump’s months-long stay at his Bedminster golf club last year cost U.S. taxpayers $653,836, according to U.S. Secret Service records obtained by NJ Advance Media.
More than half of the sum, $368,037, went for hotel rooms in the area to house the agents, according to the records obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. Under the Former Presidents Protection Act of 2012, former presidents receive Secret Service protection for the rest of their lives. The funds also went for travel expenses, including rental cars.
At the same time, more than $1 of every $10 spent by taxpayers when Trump was at Bedminster — $74,147 — went directly to the golf club for lodging and a command post.
“It is profoundly concerning that Trump is continuing to profit off of his presidency,” said Norman Eisen, former special counsel and special assistant for ethics and government reform under Democratic President Barack Obama and author of Overcoming Trumpery.
“We’ve never had a president who found so many ways to monetize the office and it hasn’t stopped,” he said.
Richard Painter, a University of Minnesota law professor who served as Republican George W. Bush’s chief ethics lawyer, said Trump should be donating the rooms to the government.
“I always thought it was a scam,” he said. “He’s milking the taxpayer. You don’t charge the Secret Service to live in your house. I didn’t like him doing it when he was in office and now he’s still doing it.”
Taylor Budowich, a spokesman for Trump, did not respond to a request for comment.
While president, Trump had been sued on the grounds that he was illegally profiting from his businesses since the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause prohibits a chief executive from receiving any government payments other than his congressionally approved compensation. The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed the litigation as moot once Trump left office.
A spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog group that brought one of the lawsuits, said Trump still could be violating the Constitution since he’s continuing to get extra government payments as an ex-president.
“It does appear to us that the founding fathers were concerned with how the president was making money and did not want the president making additional money on the side from the government,” Jordan Libowitz said.
“The domestic emolument clause says the president cannot take money from the government outside of his congressionally set salary. This is a way where he seemed to be doing exactly that.”
Trump decamped to his Mar-a-Lago estate on Jan. 20, 2021, as Joe Biden was inaugurated as the nation’s 46th president. He shifted his operations to Bedminster in May as the temperature rose before returning to Palm Beach, Florida. Records show that he was there through October.
Several prospective 2022 congressional candidates, including five from New Jersey, visited the golf club when the former president was there, some of them able to meet Trump and ask for his support.
In July, Trump made a rare public appearance at Bedminster to announce he would sue tech giants Facebook, Twitter, and Google over alleged censorship. Trump was banned from Twitter and Facebook for falsely claiming that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
During Trump’s presidency, his golf club was paid $521,275 from the U.S. Secret Service for lodging and other space, NJ Advance Media reported last year.
That was part of the $2.4 million the agency spent on travel, rental cars, hotel room, golf carts, portable toilets and other expenses at Bedminster while Trump was president. He used the golf club for weekend getaways during the warmer months, and spent much of August there during his first three years in office.
Unlike other presidents, Trump did not divest himself of his businesses or put them in a blind trust, though he did turn over day-to-day control to his sons. The head of the Office of Government Ethics at the time, Walter M. Shaub Jr., said the arrangement did not “comport with the tradition of our presidents over the past 40 years.”
Trump donated his $400,000 annual pay as president to various federal agencies.
Bedminster took in $14.7 million in revenue in 2020, 26% less than the $19.8 million the club made in 2016 before Trump became president, according to his personal financial disclosure filings. Part of the decline was due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the club temporarily shut its clubhouse, fitness center and restaurants.
Following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, the PGA of America moved its 2022 championship tournament to Tulsa, Okla., from Bedminster. The PGA and the Trump Organization in December reached a confidential settlement to end their dispute.
The Saudi-backed Super Golf League, which is being called the LIV Golf Invitational Series, will set up shop at Bedminster July 29-31, according to a league schedule reported by Sports Illustrated.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/you-re-still-paying-for-trump-s-visits-to-his-n-j-golf-club-here-s-the-cost-to-taxpayers/ar-AAX1sRb?cvid=ee55c26074f2434992e842c4dec33e22
