It’s no secret that Donald Trump likes to golf, particularly at his personal resorts. However Trump’s behavior is costing US taxpayers tens of tens of millions of {dollars} – at the same time as he decries fraud and claims to slash waste in federal spending.
Since he took workplace, Trump has fired tens of 1000’s of federal staff and tried to close down businesses, a part of his effort to unilaterally dismantle the federal government. He has additionally made seven journeys to Florida and the golf programs he owns there.
This weekend, Trump made his seventh go to to Florida and his sixth to his waterfront mansion and personal membership at Mar-a-Lago since his inauguration on 20 January. As Richard Luscombe famous within the Guardian final week, Trump’s frequent journeys to his personal properties not solely price taxpayer funds, however they profit him instantly – his companies have charged the US authorities to accommodate Secret Service brokers and different White Home workers. In different phrases, American taxpayers pay the Trump Group for the suitable to guard Trump and his household.
Throughout Trump’s first time period, his properties had a historical past of overcharging the Secret Service, by as a lot as 300% past the approved authorities resort charges, in response to a report issued by Democrats in Congress final 12 months. The report discovered that the Trump Group charged the Secret Service as a lot as $1,815 a room per evening to remain on the Trump Worldwide resort in Washington DC – billing the US authorities considerably extra than the resort did for “rooms rented by the Qatari royal household and Chinese language enterprise pursuits”.
It’s troublesome to gauge precisely how a lot the Secret Service and different businesses spent at Trump properties, since numerous reviews and audits give attention to particular time durations as a substitute of his full 4 years in workplace. The watchdog group Residents for Accountability and Ethics in Washington (Crew) estimated that the Secret Service paid practically $2m to Trump-owned properties. Trump visited his properties an astounding 547 instances throughout his first time period, in response to an evaluation by Crew. That included 145 journeys to Mar-a-Lago, 328 visits to Trump’s numerous golf programs and 33 visits to the Trump resort in Washington, which his firm offered in 2022 however is now negotiating to purchase again.
The fee to US taxpayers for Trump’s jaunts to Mar-a-Lago, which he calls his “winter White Home”, far exceeds renting rooms for the president’s safety entourage. A 2019 report by the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO), which examined 4 journeys that Trump took to his Palm Seaside resort throughout his first time period, put the complete price at $13.6m, or about $3.4m for every go to. That features flying Air Pressure One, together with a separate cargo airplane that carries the presidential motorcade, between Washington and the Palm Seaside worldwide airport. With seven journeys to this point into his present time period, the US authorities has seemingly already spent greater than $23m on Trump’s golf outings.
And that estimate doesn’t seize the complete prices to taxpayers. The GAO report doesn’t account for extra federal funds to reimburse native regulation enforcement businesses for shielding Trump whereas he’s in Florida. The Palm Seaside county sheriff, Ric Bradshaw, has stated that his division spends $240,000 a day to assist the Secret Service shield Trump. Bradshaw just lately requested county commissioners for $45m in extra funds to offer safety for Trump’s visits by way of the remainder of this 12 months – and the county is asking Congress to reimburse these prices.
Trump usually carried out official enterprise and introduced different senior US officers on his golf-focused journeys to his properties – and he’s repeating this sample early in his second time period, when he has visited Mar-a-Lago practically each weekend. Trump’s frequent journeys to his golf golf equipment ship the message to overseas leaders, enterprise executives, lobbyists, Republicans in Congress, and others who wish to curry favor with the Trump administration that his properties are open for enterprise. All through his first time period, Trump dodged accusations that he was violating the US structure’s emoluments clause as his companies accepted cash from overseas governments or lobbyists linked to them. Trump’s companies obtained $7.8m from no less than 20 overseas governments throughout his first administration, in response to a report issued by congressional Democrats final 12 months, though a later evaluation by Crew estimated that funds from overseas governments reached $13.6m.
At Mar-a-Lago, enterprise leaders have been just lately supplied one-on-one conferences with Trump for $5m, whereas others paid $1m a seat for a small-group candlelight dinner with the president. These funds appear to be going to Make America Nice Once more Inc, a Tremendous Pac that spent greater than $450m on Trump’s presidential marketing campaign final 12 months, and is now anticipated to boost funds for a presidential library that will be constructed after Trump leaves workplace.
Earlier US presidents loved enjoying golf, together with Barack Obama and George W Bush. In actual fact, as a non-public citizen, Trump mocked Obama dozens of instances for leaving Washington to play golf throughout his presidency. In August 2016, throughout his first presidential marketing campaign, Trump pledged he wouldn’t have a lot time to hit the greens. “I’m going to be working for you,” he instructed a rally in Virginia. “I’m not going to have time to go play golf.”
In fact, Trump ended up spending way more of his first time period as president enjoying golf than Obama had. And Trump’s drawback will not be how usually he performs or what number of weekends he takes off. As a result of Trump refuses to divest from possession of his household enterprise, his frequent golf outings transcend questionable authorities spending – the president is enriching himself by way of funds that US businesses make to Mar-a-Lago and different Trump properties.
The president is exempt from battle of curiosity legal guidelines that ban federal staff from taking actions that will instantly profit them. Because the Nineteen Seventies, US presidents have voluntarily abided by these legal guidelines, and put their monetary holdings in a blind belief. However Trump refused to divest from his in depth enterprise pursuits throughout his first time period, making a internet of conflicts and potential corruption. Right now, Trump is extra emboldened to disregard US legal guidelines and norms set by previous presidents, partly because of final 12 months’s supreme courtroom ruling that concluded that Trump has “presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts”.
Since taking workplace in January, Trump and his allies, particularly the billionaire Elon Musk, rushed to dismantle most of the safeguards put in place after the Watergate scandal to watch authorities corruption and punish officers concerned in ethics violations. Trump fired 17 inspectors basic who served as watchdogs over federal businesses, and he gutted a unit on the justice division that was created in 1976, after Watergate, to prosecute public corruption circumstances.
In his first time period, Trump didn’t undergo any penalties for enjoying a number of golf – and utilizing the presidency to counterpoint himself and his household. Now, he appears decided to spend much more time shuttling forwards and backwards to his golf programs at taxpayer expense, with a piece of that cash going to his companies.
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