The Secret Service is forking out nearly $35,000 to rent portable toilets at Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club where the former president is spending the summer.
Federal procurement data seen by The Daily Beast shows a contract from May 24 to September 30 of rental costs of $8,500 per month.
The toilets are being supplied by Imperial Restrooms of Saugerties, New York, for the next mour months.
The Secret Service is forking out nearly $35,000 to rent portable toilets at Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club where the former president is spending the summer (pictured last week heading tohis New Jersey home)
Trump moved last week from his winter residence of choice Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, to his golf club in New Jersey (pictured)
Trump moved last week from his winter residence of choice Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, to his golf club in New Jersey.
It comes just days after it was revealed that Trump has continued to charge the Secret Service $396.15 a night to rent one room at his Mar-a-Lago resort that they use as an office.
The Washington Post obtained Secret Service spending records that found taxpayers have already footed $40,011.15 to keep agents near Trump from January 20 until April 30 of this year.
The $396.15-per-night rate is the same amount Trump charged the agency as president and the Secret Service is now renting fewer rooms, the documents show.
However, because Trump now lives at Mar-a-Lago, instead of just spending weekends and holidays there, the Secret Service paid the private Florida club nearly as much this spring as it did during the same period in 2018 or 2019, The Post said.
Federal procurement data shows a contract from May 24 to September 30 of rental costs of $8,500 per month during his Bedminster stay (pictured)
Noah Bookbinder, executive director of watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and a former federal prosecutor, said: ‘Even now, taxpayers continue to spend many thousands of dollars to facilitate Donald Trump’s businesses.
‘He is of course entitled to protection, but from the beginning, it has been about his advancement and convenience, rather than what is good for the country.
‘Forcing taxpayers to spend all of this money for porta potties at a business that surely has sufficient bathrooms is confounding.’
David Williams, the president of the D.C.-based, Taxpayers Protection Alliance called the set-up a ‘double whammy’ for taxpayers, who are paying the salaries of Secret Service agents and for a place for them to stay.
‘It is important for former Presidents to be protected, but there is no reason why President Trump can’t give them free lodging,’ Williams argued to DailyMail.com. ‘As owner of Mar-A-Lago, Trump he has the ability to waive all fees associated with their lodging, especially considering that he was a president who said that he cared about taxpayers and the fiscal well-being of the country.’
Former President Donald Trump is pictured in the ballroom at Mar-a-Lago on April 17. He’s continued the practice of charging the Secret Service to use a room at his private Palm Beach resort
President Donald Trump moved to Mar-a-Lago in January. In May he moved to his Bedminster, New Jersey resort for the warmer months. Neither the Secret Service nor the Trump Organization would say if the Secret Service would be charged rent at Bedminster
‘This one act alone won’t solve the deficit crisis, but it will be symbolic that the President is doing his part to rein in spending at least a little bit,’ Williams added.
‘It’s tacky,’ Jeffrey Engel, the head of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University told The Post. ‘Just because you can make a buck doesn’t mean you should make a buck. And especially when you have a situation when you’re an ex-president. You’re not going to starve.’
Unlike when presidents are in office, ex-presidents have little constraints on how they can make money.
Forbes estimates that Trump is worth $2.4 billion.
The Post also noted there’s no precedent on Trump’s scale of president or ex-presidents charging the Secret Service that kind of money.
The Secret Service is being charged to rent one room at the rate of $396.15 a night. The Mar-a-Lago website shows interior shots of some of the rooms on premises
The closest example the newspaper found was the $171,600 now President Joe Biden charged the Secret Service to rent a cottage near his Delaware beach home from 2011 to 2017.
He was the vice president all but the final year.
Biden has not charged the Secret Service rent since becoming president, The Post reported.
Beyond charging the Secret Service, Business Insider reported earlier this week that Trump was taking his goverment pension.
Trump has $221,400 available to him in 2021, as ex-presidents are entitled pensions under the Former Presidents Act, with Trump’s pay equal to that of a cabinet secretary.
So far he’s received $65,600.
While in office, Trump committed to donating his presidential salary back to government entities, which he did for 14 of the 16 fiscal quarters.
Another image of a bedroom available to club members at Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida private resort
His salary from his final six months in office is unaccounted for, with a spokesperson not answering DailyMail.com’s inquiry on whether he donated or kept it.
Additionally, Trump has spent $1.2 million in taxpayer funds to keep staff on his payroll since leaving office.
And the Secret Service has been spending $140,000 a month to protect Trump’s four adult children: Donald Trump Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany, as Trump negotiated them getting Secret Service for six months after his White House departure.
Trump is also eligible to use taxpayer funding to keep an office space.
A General Services Administration representative told The Post that Trump isn’t charging taxpayers for the office he uses at Mar-a-Lago.
‘There is no agreement to pay rent at Mar-a-Lago for any space the former president is using at the club,’ a GSA representative told the paper.