While President Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoyed a steak dinner at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club, Secret Service agents and White House aides were reportedly having an extravaganza of their own.
After Trump and Xi's dinner in April 2017, then-White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin and then-Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon went into Mar-a-Lago's Library Bar with a group of advisers and told the bartender to leave so they could "speak confidentially," an email from a Mar-a-Lago staffer shows. "Secret Service did not allow the bartender to enter the room again," and "the group served themselves," the emails — obtained by ProPublica and WNYC — continue.
"Served themselves" puts it a bit lightly. The group downed 54 top-shelf drinks and left without paying, per emails and a $1005.60 bill that Mar-a-Lago sent to the State Department a few days later and ProPublica obtained. The emails from Mar-a-Lago's catering director didn't specify who was doing the drinking, though Bannon told ProPublica he hasn't had a drink in years, and Hagin didn't respond to requests for comment. Also unexplained is just why Mar-a-Lago charged a 20 percent service fee when its bartender was clearly not doing the serving.
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The State Department refused to pay the hefty tab, so the White House ended up covering it, presumably with taxpayer money, ProPublica reports. The White House didn't respond to a request for comment or say if it asked any partakers to split the bill. Read more at ProPublica or listen to WNYC's Trump, Inc. podcast episode on the subject here.
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