https://news.yahoo.com/trumps-really-campaigning-more-time-012855369.html
Ryan Cooper
,The Week•August 27, 2020
President Trump has been stuffing his pockets with taxpayer cash. According to the Washington Post, which obtained payment receipts with a public records request, "taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office." More than half of that total is due to presidential travel expenses — but their figure is by no means a comprehensive total. It will take a major investigation to figure out just how much Trump has profited personally off the presidency.
All of it is an egregious violation of the Constitution. Article II, Section 1, states that while he is in office, the president "shall not receive within that Period any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them." An emolument is any kind of payment or gift. The obvious intention is to prevent the president from abusing his authority to enrich himself — it's democratic republic 101 stuff.
Room rentals, resort fees and furniture removal: How Trump’s company charged the U.S. government more than $900,000
By David A. Fahrenthold,
Josh Dawsey and
Joshua Partlow
August 27, 2020 at 4:51 p.m. EDT
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Trump has now visited his own properties 271 times as president, according to a Washington Post tally — including a visit Thursday, when he met with GOP donors at his D.C. hotel.
Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel, according to a Post analysis.
Now, new federal spending documents obtained by The Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service — a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere. In addition to the rentals at Mar-a-Lago, the documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily “resort fees” to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 “furniture removal charge” during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland.
In addition, campaign finance records have provided new details about the payments the Trump Organization received from GOP groups, as a result of the 37 instances in which Trump headlined a political event at one of his properties. Those visits have brought the company at least $3.8 million in fees, according to a Post analysis of campaign spending records.
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He tried to award the massive Group of Seven summit to his Doral resort in Miami, dropping the idea after a public backlash. He filmed video messages for big-spending private clients at Mar-a-Lago. He suggested that Pence visit a Trump property in Ireland, according to the vice president’s chief of staff. Pence then shuttled back and forth across Ireland, at U.S. taxpayer expense, to do government business on one coast and stay at Trump’s hotel on the other.
But the most frequent way Trump is known to have helped his properties has been just to visit them, with the vast, big-spending presidential entourage in tow.
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On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump had offered one simple way to underline his separation from his properties: He just wouldn’t visit.
“I may never see these places again,” Trump said during a rally in August 2016. “Because I’m going to be working for you. I’m not going to have time to go play golf. Believe me.”
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“His knee-jerk, every single time, was to do things at his own properties,” said the former Trump administration official. “He never really understood that you couldn’t do it. In his mind, he could never understand that you should do it somewhere else.” Like other officials interviewed for this report, the former official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters.
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The newly obtained federal records showed other instances in which the Trump Organization charged the government rates far above what Eric Trump claimed.
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In early 2017, for instance, Pence visited Las Vegas to speak to a Republican Jewish Coalition gathering. He stayed one night at the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, newly released receipts show. The Secret Service was charged for 151 rooms, at about $102 per room per night — the maximum rate for Las Vegas at the time under normal federal per-diem rules. Secret Service agents are allowed to exceed the limit while on protective duty.
In Las Vegas, the Trump hotel also tacked on $29 per room in “resort fees,” receipts show. That added $4,379 to the bill, for a total of $20,183. The hotel’s website said the fee covered services such as coffee, shoe shines and shuttle service to the shopping mall at the Caesars Palace casino. The Trump Organization did not say why it had charged resort fees to working Secret Service agents.
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Trump’s children and grandchildren also visited Trump properties repeatedly, bringing their own taxpayer-funded Secret Service details.
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“The Secret Service is always there,” said one former employee at the Trump hotel in Washington. With all the visits by the president, his children and top officials, the former employee said, “it’s like being in the White House — that’s how I felt working there.” The former employee spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships at the hotel.
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Trump’s visits as president also brought payments from Republican political groups, which have held fundraisers at his properties, with Trump himself as the headliner. This summer, four such events have been held, three at Trump’s Bedminster club and another at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. The costs of those events have not yet been released.
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Trump has also used his taxpayer-funded trips to help customers that hold charity galas or wedding receptions in his business’s ballrooms.
The revenue he has reaped from these visits is harder to measure. Wedding-reception bills, for instance, are not subject to public-records requests. But Trump’s attention to these events underscores how he has discarded his promise to separate his business and his White House.
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