Documents show Trump properties charged Secret Service higher rates than previously claimed

Mar-a-Lago.
(Image credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Newly released receipts and billing documents show that taxpayers paid for an additional $157,000 in charges stemming from the Secret Service staying at President Trump's properties, The Washington Post reports.

Since his inauguration, President Trump has spent 355 days visiting his own properties, the Post estimates. Trump's son, Eric Trump, has said agents "stay at our properties for free — meaning, like, cost for housekeeping," later adding, "we charge them, like, 50 bucks." The new receipts obtained by the watchdog group Public Citizen show that in 2017, 2018, and 2019, the Secret Service was charged for 177 additional nightly room rentals at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, at a cost of $396.15 per night, per room.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.