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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Early Morning Open Thread: Trump’s Grifting the Secret Service

Early Morning Open Thread: Trump’s Grifting the Secret Service

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I’d have assumed such behavior would fall under an extremely intense version of the old rule “Never be rude to people who could spit in your food.” But then, I’m not a commanding visionary business leader like Donald ‘The Grifter’ Trump. From the Politico article:

… It’s standard practice for the agency — which is tasked with protecting presidential candidates as well as presidents and other federal officials — to reimburse presidential campaigns for the cost of traveling with the candidates.

In fact, the Secret Service has reimbursed the Clinton campaign, too: $2.6 million so far this cycle.

The difference with Trump is that one of his companies, TAG Air, Inc., owns the plane, so the government is effectively paying him.

The Clinton campaign, by contrast, mostly has been chartering planes from a private company called Executive Fliteways in which the Clintons do not have any ownership interest.

“The taxpayers are actually reimbursing Trump for the travel of the Secret Service agents,” said Brett Kappel, a campaign finance lawyer at the law firm Akerman LLP. “It’s just another example of how the Trump campaign has taken an unprecedentedly large amount of its money and spent it at Trump-owned facilities.”…

A POLITICO analysis of FEC records found that, through the end of August, Trump’s campaign has spent at least $8.2 million at Trump’s own businesses, including to hold events at his hotels, buy food from his restaurants and rent office space for its headquarters in his Manhattan office tower…

If Trump was a character on a TV comedy, he’d be rejected as “too exaggerated”.

Reader Interactions

45Comments

  3. 3.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    It’s one thing to spend donor money at Trump owned businesses, but taxpayer dollars paid to a candidate’s business? That should be prohibited.

  9. 9.

    seaboogie

    @BlueDWarrior: I’m guessing that anyone adept at dealing 3-card monte could clean up outside the polling stations in heavily GOP districts. The marks are enthusiastic, and never know they are being had….

  10. 10.

    seaboogie

    @lollipopguild: Well yes, of course there’s that, but they are doing their jobs. The “liberal” MSM – not so much. Corporate media click-whores will be to USA as lead was to Rome, but much money and entertainment in that.

  11. 11.

    Kay

    Love this, from The Federalist:

    In short, Obama has served nearly eight years as the head of a movement that’s engaged in a deliberate assault on the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the Constitution. Hillary Clinton is now running to become the new head of that movement.
    Trump has demonstrated an evident lack of familiarity with the Constitution. But he isn’t committed to undermining it, and has shown an instinctive fondness for traditional American ways.

    He isn’t “committed to undermining it” because he doesn’t know what’s in it. This is the kind of elaborate excuse-making you’ll see as Republicans fall in line.

    They have this belief that Trump will be President but someone else, someone better, will really be running things. It isn’t Mike Pence, because they know he’s a dope and Congress doesn’t run the executive branch so they’re hoping someone who is appointed, not elected, will be the actual President.

  12. 12.

    lollipopguild

    @seaboogie: We have 40-45% of our population who have created an alternate reality for themselves where they are always right and should always win and run the country until Jesus comes back.
    Because.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    @Kay:

    Trump has demonstrated an evident lack of familiarity with the Constitution. But he isn’t committed to undermining it, and has shown an instinctive fondness for traditional American ways.

    ??

  15. 15.

    Kay

    @Amir Khalid:

    They forgot to list them! I wonder why?

    Racism? Religious intolerance? Ripping people off? Hiring family members for no-show jobs? An affinity for reality television and cable news celebrities?

  16. 16.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    @Amir Khalid:
    Evidently racism, xenophobia, misogyny, multiple marriages, advocating torture of prisoners, and cheating workers and small business owners out duly earned monies are all traditional values.

    ETA: What Kay wrote.

  17. 17.

    Kay

    This solves a mystery for me. I was wondering how the Trump Family were keeping the empire afloat since none of them ever go to work. They plugged in some short-term cash flow.

    Wait until after the election. We will never get rid of these people. The remainder of their careers will be spent on political grifting. Sarah Palin hasn’t worked a day since McCain’s campaign. Mike Huckabee wasn’t even nominated and he’s raking it in.

  19. 19.

    Donut

    @The Ancient Randonneur:

    Evidently racism, xenophobia, misogyny, multiple marriages, advocating torture of prisoners, and cheating workers and small business owners out duly earned monies are all traditional values.

    Well…yeah. For a very large sub-set of Americans, those are indeed traditional values. But as we know, acceptable to engage in only if you’re a white dude, and if on Sundays you tell Jebus you’re sorry you did all that bad stuff.

  20. 20.

    Kay

    @lollipopguild:

    The whining from both the Left and the Right on executive branch over-reach gets on my nerves. Congress has PLENTY of power under the Constitution. If Congress isn’t stopping an executive action it’s because Congress doesn’t want to. Congress doesn’t check the President on foreign policy because they don’t want to be responsible for the outcome. The President can’t over-reach unless Congress also runs away. They leave an opening and the executive fills the opening and it works out well for all of them.

  21. 21.

    MattF

    There is one –and only one– thing on which Trump is absolutely consistent: the grift. Has he ever let go of a chance to skim off a few bucks of other people’s money? Or, if the opportunity presents itself, a few million bucks? No amount is too small (or too large), he’ll take his cut.

  22. 22.

    seaboogie

    Anne Laurie….I don’t mind being in moderation, but being so as “undefined” for my nym makes me feel kind of blurry – like I died and don’t know it yet…which might be pretty fine when it actually comes to pass, but since I’m still typing, it seems odd.

    That said, I’m pretty good with the original brief comment, so maybe leave it as it appears.

    ETA Thank you for the brevity and nym restored. I am become whole again.

  23. 23.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    CNN has a report on its website that the Clinton campaign offered Mark Cuban a front row seat at the first debate. Cuban confirmed that he accepted the offer.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @MattF:

    Trump, Guilaini and Christie in the executive branch would be unprecedented levels of corruption and self-dealing.

    I don’t think any of them have any boundaries at all. The only “check” would be if they turn on each other somewhere along the line- some kind of intra-crook dispute. We already know Christie will lie publicly and shamelessly for months about a huge scandal and the brazenness! He had taxpayers cover the cost of that fake investigation he engineered.

  32. 32.

    PaulWartenberg2016

    If Trump was a character on a TV comedy, he’d be rejected as “too exaggerated”.

    Did you ever watch the tv show Leverage?

    One of the producers is actively on Twitter, and he once tweeted out that – no lie – they based their villains (and many of the evildoer schemes) on real-life CEO crooks, and that one of those CEO crooks was hired onto Trump’s campaign.

    So, actually, yeah, Trump can well be a real-life TV villain.

  33. 33.

    Lurking Canadian

    As Trump stories go, this one strikes me as a whole lot of nothing. It says right there that the Secret Service always pays for the airfare of its people, and is doing so for Clinton as well.

    Trump’s using his own plane, so he’s being reimbursed. My employer has a similar policy: rent a car, we’ll pay the rental fee; drive your own car, we’ll pay you for the mileage.

    Unless he’s charging them WAY above market rates, this pales to insignificance next to the other crap he’s getting away with.

  34. 34.

    Ian

    This screams of waste, fraud, and abuse, Exactly the kind of program Trump say’s he will cut to make his yuge tax plan work.

    In all seriousness, why is this government policy? Why does the government reimburse presidential campaigns for providing security to them?

  35. 35.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Ian: The govt reimburses the campaigns because security is a govt obligation, done at govt cost. The govt pays transportation just as it pays the agents’ salaries.

    Does anyone know why so much more money has been spent on travel for Clinton’s agents? Is she traveling more?

  37. 37.

    dr. luba

    @Iowa Old Lady: Could it depend on when the SS protection was initiated? Hillary, as former FLOTUS, would have been getting coverage all along; Trump only once he was the would-be nominee AFAIK.

  39. 39.

    Barney

    ‘If Trump was a character on a TV comedy, he’d be rejected as “too exaggerated”.’

    That’s already happened:

    The final section of Power Monkeys is filmed inside Donald Trump’s campaign plane. Here the careerist politico, Lauren (Amelia Bullmore), who has been brought in to try to win women over to the cause, constantly clashes with the Trump-ist zealot, Bea (Ayda Field).

    The producers show us round the interior of “Trump’s plane”. It is, as you would hope, ludicrously over the top and bling-tastic. Everything is encrusted with gold, from the seat belts and lamps to the sofas and ornamental pineapples on the sideboard. But this is apparently a toned-down version of reality. It has been estimated that the inside of the New York mogul’s real plane contains enough 24 carat gold to cover a London bus.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/features/power-monkeys-the-new-political-sitcom-is-written-on-the-day-of-broadcast-to-ensure-maximum-a7070126.html

  40. 40.

    Eric U.

    @Iowa Old Lady: I figured that Clinton traveled more. It’s a little surprising since Trump is flying home every night. Trump is going to see this and double his rate.

  43. 43.

    Another_Bob

    Yeah, but remember that time they accused Bill Clinton of keeping Air Force One waiting on the tarmac so he could get a $200 haircut? So both sides do it, Libtards!!! :-)

  44. 44.

    philadelphialawyer

    @Lurking Canadian:

    “Trump’s using his own plane, so he’s being reimbursed. My employer has a similar policy: rent a car, we’ll pay the rental fee; drive your own car, we’ll pay you for the mileage.”

    The difference being that Trump is almost certainly making a profit on his “reimbursement.”

    Hillary, I presume, simply charges the government what it costs her to pay airfare for the Secret Service guys. She makes nothing on the transaction. The airline gets the profit from the government agent travel, not her. Just as you do if you rent a car and then the company reimburses you. IE the rental car company gets the profit on your travel, not you.

    Trump is more like the mileage situation, yes. But he is not merely being paid on the basis of what the G Men travel theoretically costs, as you are when you use your own car and the company reimburses you. Rather, he is the for profit provider of the government transportation. He gets the profit. You make no profit on your business travel, assuming that the mileage rate is closely tied to the real, pro rata costs of gas, car ownership, maintenance, tolls, etc. It would be more like if you could charge your company car rental rates for the use of your own car, which presumably would include a profit.

    This is the case as well with campaign donor money when Trump books all those campaign events at his resorts, has the campaign HQ and phone banking at Trump Tower, and so on. And like when the Trump Foundation rents those properties for various events too.

    It might not be illegal, but Trump is funneling money (government, campaign, and charity) into his for profit enterprises in highly dubious ways.

    And, of course, all of the above is WITHOUT considering the almost certainly true notion that Trump is goldplating the whole thing, charging way above market rates for the travel, use of his resorts and Trump Tower, and so on.

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