Secret Service ‘Basically Forgot’ to File Reports on Payment to Trump Properties: Washington Post Reporter
David Fahrenthold of The Washington Post appeared on Rachel Maddow’s show Friday night to discuss a recent story of his that detailed payments made by the Secret Service to properties owned by President Donald Trump.
“President Trump’s company charges the Secret Service for the rooms agents use while protecting him at his luxury properties — billing U.S. taxpayers at rates as high as $650 per night, according to federal records and people who have seen receipts,” the story reads. “Those charges…show that Trump has an unprecedented — and largely hidden — business relationship with his own government.”
Fahrenthold told Maddow that the Secret Service “basically just forgot” about regular expense reports they are required to file in part because the people who knew about them “left” the agency in 2016. From the story:
The full extent of the Secret Service’s payments to Trump’s company is not known. The Secret Service has not listed them in public databases of federal spending, as is usually required for payments over $10,000.
Instead, documents have come out piecemeal, through public records requests from news organizations and watchdog groups. The Washington Post compiled available records and found 103 payments from the Secret Service to Trump’s company dated between January 2017 and April 2018.
The records show more than $471,000 in payments from taxpayers to Trump’s companies. But — because these records cover only a fraction of Trump’s travel during a fraction of his term — the actual total is likely to be higher.
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
