City leaders to Trump: help us fight the coronavirus by paying your bills

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/city-leaders-to-trump-help-us-fight-the-coronavirus-by-paying-your-bills/

April 16, 2020

Here’s how some city leaders say President Donald Trump could immediately help them grapple with the coronavirus crisis: Pay bills they already sent his campaign committee months or years ago.

Fourteen municipal governments — from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Wildwood, New Jersey — want Trump’s campaign committee to clear a combined $1.82 million worth of public safety-related debt connected to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign rallies, according to interviews with local officials and municipal records obtained by the Center for Public Integrity.

The Trump campaign’s tab is now more than double what Public Integrity first reported in June.

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Campaigns should always reimburse already cash-strapped cities for police and public safety costs, argued Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, whose city wants the Trump campaign to pay nearly $543,000 stemming from an Oct. 10 rally.

“But during this crisis, that loss is even more pronounced — $150,000, for instance, could pay for emergency rental assistance for 100 Minneapolis families,” Frey told Public Integrity this week.

“Without this money, we cannot help our most vulnerable, and I guarantee we do not have enough money to prevent lives lost and homes lost,” said Kate Burke, a city council member in Spokane, Washington, which has been waiting since 2016 for the Trump campaign to pay more than $65,000.

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But in a statement to Public Integrity, the Trump campaign indicated it’s not responsible for reimbursing cities for police and public safety costs associated with its spirited, and sometimes boisterous rallies — the president’s favored venue for connecting with supporters.

“It is the U.S. Secret Service, not the campaign, which coordinates with local law enforcement. The campaign itself does not contract with local governments for police involvement. All billing inquiries should go to the Secret Service,” the statement said.

Secret Service officials, however, said that they receive no funding from Congress to reimburse municipal governments for the local public safety protection they request.

The Trump campaign did not say whether it supports Congress appropriating federal tax dollars to reimburse municipal governments for protecting people at future presidential campaign rallies.

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Many cities that hosted Trump rallies chose not to bill his campaign for police and public safety costs, explaining they have policies against doing so or didn’t bother because of Trump’s history of nonpayment.

Alternatively, several — including Nashville — required the Trump campaign to sign a contract and prepay police costs because Trump planned to appear at a city-owned facility.

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Some recent presidential candidates, including Republican Ted Cruz in 2016 and Democratic also-rans Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg in 2020 routinely paid police bills municipal governments sent their campaigns. They argued it was the right thing to do, even if their campaigns weren’t legally obliged.

President Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton paid some police bills, but not others. Likewise, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who dropped out of the 2020 race this week, has a checkered history of paying such bills.

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Biden’s campaign, which has primarily conducted small-scale political events during the 2020 campaign, has paid several municipalities and school districts several thousands of dollars during the past year for “event security,” Federal Election Commission records indicate. The Biden campaign has also paid New York-based private security firm T&M Protection Resources more than $312,000, according to federal records.

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If the Trump campaign decided to pay the $1.82 million in police and public safety bills it’s received, it’d have no trouble doing so: Trump’s own campaign committee, combined with Republican National Committee entities, this week announced they had begun the month with more than $240 million in reserve.