Taxpayers paid for $238,000 to Trump properties for Secret Service to protect the president’s children: report

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Fahrenthold has new details on the ongoing costs American taxpayers are forking over to help protect President Donald Trump's adult children.

Last month, Eric Trump tried to attack Vice President Joe Biden for not being rich, asking when the last time was that he donated his salary back to the government. It's an ironic question given Eric and his siblings have cost Americans $238,000 to protect them at their father's own properties.

The fact is part of Fahrenthold's ongoing investigation into how Trump is profiting off of having the Secret Service stay and spend at his properties while he goes off on his weekend vacations and golfing trips. In this case, however, Trump's family is in on the scam as well.

"Eric Trump took his Secret Service agents to Trump golf courses in Scotland, as he led transatlantic tours for paying customers," the report revealed. "Donald Trump Jr. took his protectors to the Trump hotel in Vancouver, stopping over on hunting trips to Canada. And Ivanka Trump took her Secret Service detail to the Trump golf club in Bedminster, N.J., again and again — even after she asked other Americans to 'please, please' stay home during the coronavirus pandemic."

Each trip means that Secret Service agents pay for multiple rooms, food, drinks, golf cart rentals and any other fees the Trump Organization properties can come up with.

Documents obtained by the Postshow the $238,000 sum is a drop in the bucket for the millions of debt Trump's properties are costing him, but every dime helps to zero-out Trump's business failures at properties struggling to turn a profit.

"Many of Trump’s marquee properties, such as his Doral resort in Florida and his hotel in Washington, have struggled in recent years, weighed down by Trump’s divisive politics."

In the last few weeks, the New York Times has released a series of reports about the astounding amount of debt the president is suffering under. The self-described billionaire shows nearly $500 million in unpaid bills that will begin to come due while he's in office if he's reelected in November.

Even before the pandemic hit the hospitality industry, Trump's properties were losing millions.

“I joke all the time that I would like nothing more than to never have another person from the government stay at one of our properties because it displaces a true paying guest,” Eric Trump told a Fox News podcast in February.

The report cited Scott Amey, of the Project on Government Oversight, suggesting that it is a moral question for the Trump family.

“Morally speaking, do they want to profit [from the fact] that their father’s in the White House?” said Amey. “They could very easily reimburse those expenses, so the federal government and the taxpayer are not on the hook for that tab.”

Morality hasn't been a factor in crafting Trump family decisions in the past, however.

"These payments stand in contrast to a philosophy that Eric Trump laid out in the early days of his father’s presidency, that the family would not use Trump’s power for financial gain," the report continued.

“There are lines that we would never cross, and that’s mixing business with anything government,” Eric Trump swore in a 2017 interview with The Post.

Trump's youngest adult child, Tiffany Trump, only appears once in the report, when she went with her brother to the opening of the Trump hotel in Vancouver in 2017.

"Their combined Secret Service details required 56 rooms, and the Trump hotel charged the government $14,900," the report revealed.

Every time Don Jr. stays in Washington, it appears he also stays at the Trump hotel, instead of with his father at the massive residence in the White House or at his sister's six-bedroom mansion. Instead, he cost taxpayers a total of $29,000 for his Secret Service detail to stay at the Trump hotel.

Ivanka Trump's bills total about $42,000 so that her family could vacation to Trump properties. Most of it came after she begged Americans not to travel because of the coronavirus outbreak.

While Ivanka was at the Bedminster club, Secret Service was up-charged more for their usual rooms. Typically they were charged $567 per night, but in the spring, they were charged $630 per night. There's no reason why given on the reports.

Eric Trump and his wife Lara, who works on the campaign, are responsible for about $151,000 in government payments to his father's properties. He racked up a $3,800 charge for the Secret Service to have rooms at Trump’s Aberdeenshire, Scotland for a golf tour.

Because the children were all traveling at the same time, there were days in which Trump properties were being paid by taxpayers in three different countries all on the same day.

Read the full report.