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Donald Trump is back to his favorite game at his resorts, but it’s not golf … it’s fleecing the taxpayer.
The Swamp has learned that the president’s Secret Service entourage racked up hotel bills of more than $53,000 during a recent, all expenses paid golfing trip to cut the ribbon on his latest links course in Scotland. And where did this $53,000 go? You’ve guessed it: the Trump Organization. No conflict of interest there, then. Trump loves golf, and his mother’s native country. And making money.
There were raised eyebrows when Trump flew across the pond in July to play golf and negotiate world peace. Few partners of golfing spouses would believe it was a work trip.
But a little birdie told The Swamp that it was a money earner, after all—just not for the U.S.
The Secret Service spent $48,040.54 at Trump Turnberry (approximately $900 a night, double occupancy) during the president’s stop from July 25 to July 28. That’s according to documents provided to The Swamp by the agency in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. The Secret Service also spent $5,067.57 at the Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen for just one night on July 28.
The president himself certainly mixed business with, well, business.
When Air Force One landed, he got an official reception from the U.K. government in the form of Scottish Secretary Ian Murray (as well as Warren Stephens, U.S. Ambassador to the U.K.) but then it was straight to his Turnberry resort, in South Ayrshire. While there he met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. But he also got in some golf the morning after arrival and then traveled 200 miles north-east to his other Scottish property to cut the ribbon on its new 18-hole course and, of course, tee off again.
The more than $53,000 the Secret Service spent at Trump hotels was just a fraction of the full cost of the president’s visit to the protective agency alone.
In total, the president’s visit to Turnberry cost the Secret Service more than $2 million, including more than $800,000 on multiple hotels and more than $1.1 million on other expenses such as rentals. His visit to Aberdeen alone cost the Secret Service more than $1.6 million, including more than $368,000 on various hotels and $1.2 million on other costs such as car rentals and other services. It is not clear how much of the other costs also were paid to Trump businesses.
Trump charging the federal government for stays at his personal properties is a continuation of a practice he began during his first term and which legal experts warn is still unconstitutional.
“No president in the history of the government has charged rent to the United States government for Secret Service agents or other government officials to stay on a property owned by them until Donald Trump came along,” said Richard Painter, who served as chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush administration. “The reason is I think it’s a violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause.”
The U.S. Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause was included by the country’s founders to insulate the president from corrupting forces. It stipulates the president is to receive a fixed salary but bars him from receiving “any other Emolument from the United States, or any of them.”
Painter argued neither Pres. Bush never charged Secret Service agents to stay in Kennebunkport or at the Texas ranch and the Kennedys didn’t ask for cash to stay at Hyannis Port.
But who is going to argue with Trump? Certainly not the Secret Service, especially when the president name-checked one-time 007 Sean Connery. “Sean Connery helped get me the permits—if it weren’t for Sean Connery, we wouldn’t have those great courses.”
Strange then, that in Aberdeenshire, local council member Martin Ford, the chair of the planning committee that initially turned down Trump’s application for his new course, told the Guardian: “Mr. Connery was not involved in the due process that led to the granting of planning permission for a golf resort at Menie. He did not submit a letter of representation to the council, appear at the planning hearing, or at the public local inquiry.”
Perhaps Trump was confusing Connery, who died in 2020, aged 90, with Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond, who had a Scottish father and was never one for rules. After all, Trump is also fond of quoting the “late, great Hannibal Lecter.”
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The post Trump Profits From Secret Service Staying at His $900-a-Night Hotel appeared first on The Daily Beast.
