Security forces guard Trump Tower in December 2016.
Image: AP
For the overnight stays of the security guards to protect the president, up to five times higher amounts were paid than permitted by the government. This could have cost taxpayers $1.4 million.
Dhe company of former US President Donald Trump is said to have billed Secret Service employees for hotel stays significantly higher than officially approved during his tenure. Up to five times higher amounts were paid for overnight security guards in Trump hotels to protect the ex-president and his family than the tariff allowed by the government in such cases.
This was announced by the chair of the relevant committee in the US Congress, Carolyn Maloney, to the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, in a letter on Monday. She asked Cheatle to provide the committee with full accounting on the matter.
Expense reports show that the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service far higher amounts than usual on 40 occasions — in one instance, about $1,185 for an overnight stay at Trump’s International Hotel in Washington, DC. This could have cost US taxpayers at least $1.4 million. The “exorbitant rates” and “agents’ “frequent stints in Trump-owned properties” raise significant concerns that Trump may have been self-serving, Maloney wrote.