David Farenthold of the Washington Post follows how government money winds up in Trump’s bank account.
Has there ever been a president who profited so handsomely from his office?
The following article is excerpted in part.
Farenthold writes:
The Secret Service had asked for a room close to the president. But Mar-a-Lago said it was too late. The room was booked. Would agents like a room across the street from the president, instead?
“I do have a Beach Cabana available,” a staff member at President Trump’s club in Palm Beach, Fla., wrote in March 2017 to a Secret Service agent seeking rooms for the upcoming weekend. “Across the street at the Beach Club, North end of the pool.”
The next time, the Secret Service didn’t take the same risk. It paid Mar-a-Lago to book rooms for two weeks at a time — locking them up before the club could rent them to others, according to newly released records and emails.
For Trump’s club, it appeared, saying no to the Secret Service had made it a better customer. The agency was paying for rooms on nights when Trump wasn’t even visiting — to be ready just in case Trump decided to go, one former Trump administration official said.
Trump has now visited his own properties 270 times as president, according to a Washington Post tally — with another visit planned for Thursday, when he is scheduled to meet GOP donors at his Washington hotel.
Through these trips, Trump has brought the Trump Organization a stream of private revenue from federal agencies and GOP campaign groups. Federal spending records show that taxpayers have paid Trump’s businesses more than $900,000 since he took office. At least $570,000 came as a result of the president’s travel, according to a Post analysis.
Now, new federal spending documents obtained by The Post via a public-records lawsuit give more detail about how the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service — a kind of captive customer, required to follow Trump everywhere. In addition to the rentals at Mar-a-Lago, the documents show that the Trump Organization charged daily “resort fees” to Secret Service agents guarding Vice President Pence in Las Vegas and in another instance asked agents to pay a $1,300 “furniture removal charge” during a presidential visit to a Trump resort in Scotland.
In addition, campaign finance records have provided new details about the payments the Trump Organization received from GOP groups, as a result of the 37 instances in which Trump headlined a political event at one of his properties. Those visits have brought the company at least $3.8 million in fees, according to a Post analysis of campaign spending records.
Since taking office, Trump has taken other actions that have shattered his early promise to “completely isolate” himself from the Trump Organization. He tried to award the massive Group of Seven summit to his Doral resort in Miami, dropping the idea after a public backlash. He filmed video messages for big-spending private clients at Mar-a-Lago. He suggested that Pence visit a Trump property in Ireland, according to the vice president’s chief of staff. Pence then shuttled back and forth across Ireland, at U.S. taxpayer expense, to do government business on one coast and stay at Trump’s hotel on the other.
But the most frequent way Trump is known to have helped his properties has been just to visit them, with the vast, big-spending presidential entourage in tow.
One would think that if he was trying to completely isolate himself from his businesses, he wouldn’t talk about his business, he wouldn’t promote his business, he wouldn’t go to his businesses,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Instead, Bookbinder said, “his businesses have been a constant presence in his presidency. No. The idea that he was going to isolate himself completely — it’s been quite the opposite.”
The Trump Organization provided a statement saying that it has complied with promises it made before Trump took office. The company said it has rejected all new foreign deals and donated any profits from doing business with foreign governments. “
Over the past three and a half years, we have gone to tremendous lengths to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest, not due to any legal requirement, but because of the respect we have towards the office of the Presidency,” Eric Trump, the president’s son, said in a statement.
Eric Trump did not directly address questions about the Trump Organization’s charges to the U.S. government.
President Trump chose to keep ownership of his business while in office. He could. The president is largely exempt from government conflict-of-interest rules. But still — to address worries about distraction and the appearance of a conflict of interest — Trump made two sets of promises.
One set governed the Trump Organization, to keep Trump’s business away from his presidency.
The company, now led by Trump’s two adult sons, said it would exclude the president from decision-making, refuse any new overseas deals and give back any profits it made from doing business with foreign governments.
The other set governed Trump personally: He said he would keep his presidency far away from his business.
“President-elect Trump wants there to be no doubt in the minds of the American public that he is completely isolating himself from his business interests,” Sheri Dillon, a Trump lawyer, said at a news conference Trump called in January 2017. “He instructed us to take all steps realistically possible to make it clear that he is not exploiting the office of the presidency for his personal benefit.” (Dillon did not respond to requests for comment for this report.)
On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump had offered one simple way to underline his separation from his properties: He just wouldn’t visit. “I may never see these places again,” Trump said during a rally in August 2016. “Because I’m going to be working for you. I’m not going to have time to go play golf. Believe me.”
In response to questions for this report, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement that Trump has “turned over the day-to-day responsibilities of running the company though he was not required to, [and] has sacrificed billions of dollars” because of discarded deals.
Deere did not directly address questions related to the second set of promises Trump made before taking office — the promises that he would not use his presidency to help the Trump Organization. “The Washington Post is blatantly interfering with the business relationships of the Trump Organization, and it must stop,” Deere wrote in his statement.
“Please be advised that we are building up a very large ‘dossier’ on the many false David Fahrenthold and others stories as they are a disgrace to journalism and the American people.”
The full amount paid by the U.S. government to Trump’s properties is unknown. Neither the Trump Organization nor the White House would provide a figure, and many of the records showing these transactions have not been released.
To sketch out how Trump complied with his promises, The Post interviewed staff members at Trump properties and former Trump administration officials, and reviewed thousands of pages of federal spending records obtained via public-records requests.
Most recently, The Post received 265 pages of receipts and emails that the Secret Service released this month, in response to The Post’s lawsuit, and that provided new details about previously identified payments to Trump properties.
These show that Trump’s pledge to isolate himself did not survive his first two weeks in office. On his 15th day as president, he went to Mar-a-Lago. And the end of his literal isolation also ended his financial isolation: Trump’s visit brought the club a new, deep-pocketed customer.
On that trip, the Secret Service reserved a house, a cottage, two suites and two hotel rooms from the club to guard the president, according to newly released documents. The Secret Service paid $10,660 for the weekend, federal records show. The Secret Service declined to comment for this article.
“His knee-jerk, every single time, was to do things at his own properties,” said the former Trump administration official. “He never really understood that you couldn’t do it. In his mind, he could never understand that you should do it somewhere else.” Like other officials interviewed for this report, the former official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
trump is disgusting. There’s nothing redeeming about him.
Secret Room Service
For those who would protect you
You charge the highest fee
They can’t by law neglect you
So serve on bended knee
Some comments about Don the Con’s Stalinesque speech last night:
Leonard Cohen must be rolling in his grave that the fascist Trump used his song “Hallelujah” during the obscene and illegal fireworks display at the end of his obscene, lie-filled speech tonight.
Trump is completely lawless. Every other incumbent has always understood that the people’s house and monuments are not HIS and could not be used for campaigning. Using government property for campaigning is a violation of the Hatch Act, but Trump flouts the law, and in a particular way. This is what fascists do. They appropriate the symbols of government of, by, and for the people for the promotion of a cult of personality. Trump’s is government of the people by and for Trump.
Oh, BTW, Trump:
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
And love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah.
I know, Donnie, that those lines are WAY over the tiny, reptilian brain inside that inflated orange clown head of yours, but there is much appropriate in these lines: you turned the Republican Convention into a typical fascist spectacle, complete with the flags and the marble. You pretended to love (to care about) immigrants, the poor, small business owners, the sick and disabled, our troops, and so on. It’s interesting that in order to make a case for your reelection, you had to pretend to be precisely the opposite of what you are. You blasphemed again and again, of course, evoking the name of a God you know nothing of in support of your sick agenda. Where was your buddy Jerry Falwell, Jr., to appeal to the swing voters for you? You are a cold, deeply broken person, and your fascism is but your malignant narcissistic personality disorder writ large.
There was a horrifically appropriate gaffe by Trump during his speech tonight. His words, when he veered from his prepared speech into his usual Toddler English: “We have pioneered the fatality rate.”
A gaffe, but true. His denials and failure to act cost countless U.S. lives.
Trump dog whistle during his speech last night: He talked about “this great house,” turned to the White House, pointed at it, and asked “What color is it”?
Kamala Harris tweeted, and I entirely concur, “Trump, get off our lawn.”
Trump dog whistle during his speech last night: He talked about “this great house,” turned to the White House, pointed at it, and asked “What color is it”?
Melania wore a green screen dress for the Idiot’s speech, and much fun has been made of this, today, by people replacing it with Biden/Harris campaign posters, pictures of the coronavirus, and U.S. Covid death stats. Her fashion choices are always interesting. What’s with the Soviet military garb she wore during her speech?
Trump rambled on and on ad nauseam, telling, of course, lie after lie after lie. Biden is a Socialist. He wants to defund the police. You have worked to protect people with pre-existing conditions. Biden supports looting. Obvious lies. But that’s what fascist leaders are supposed to be able to do, isn’t it? Tell baldfaced lies that those around him must assent to because they love exercising that kind of power. Grass? Grass is pink. Yes, Mr. President, very pink. A complete accounting of the lies told by you and your spawn and toadies at the Trump Fascist Spectacle would require a small library of books. So, I’m done. Looking forward to your being booted from what you have turned into the Offal Office in the Whiter House and exchanging your orange clown makeup for an orange jump suit.
Forgive the repetition and shift in tense in those comments. After the Trump Fascist Spectacle, I’m so furious I can barely type.
Ironically, Trump made very clear in this spectacle who he is and what he stands for. Here, a few of the parallels between the RNC remade by Trump and other spectacles put on by dictators like Stalin:
Ultranationalism. Military bands playing jingoistic patriotic tunes, flags, flags, flags.
Pretend kindness from the great leader. Staged events showing He who shines more orange than the sun deigning to extend mercy to ordinary persons, representative “citizens.”
Nepotism. Dictators can’t trust anyone except family, so of course we got the parade of Trump’s vile spawn. The apple doesn’t fall far.
Cult of personality. All Trump, all the time. Trump’s name in fireworks above the Washington Monument.
Baldfaced lying. Telling lies that are completely blatant because those around him don’t dare contradict him.
The myth of the return to the golden age. All this make America great again bs. Right out of Hitler’s playbook–hearkening back to a glorious Aryan past that only he can restore.
Appropriation of national symbols to the leader.
Fascist imagery, architecture, and design. Lots and lots of “from below” shots to make the setting seem even more imposing, grand, monumental, fascist. The new stark and very white Rose Garden.
Flags and marble. And a military-parade-style fly-over. Did Albert Speer design this? Where was Leni Riefenstahl to film this Triumph of the Trumpian Will?
Someday in the not to distant future, Trump the Liar will no longer be in office. But he will, as with other past presidents, have the Secret Service to protect him. If, as he as said several times, that he wants to make Florida and Mar-a-Lago his future residence then what is it going to cost the taxpayers every year to put the Secret Service up in Mar-a-Lago? Regardless of where Trump ends up I am positive it is going to cost the taxpayers a very, very big pile of money. Trump will soak the US taxpayer for all he can get and not think a thing about it. We can just hope the need to provide the Secret Service for Trump’s protection is short lived.
The Secret Service will be quartered in the most expensive suites at Mar-a-Lago or wherever Trump goes, so as to enrich the boss to the max on the taxpayers’ dime.
If he is convicted and goes to jail, does the Secret Service go with him?
I do not have any reference to this question but I would bet Trump would end up in house arrest at the Trump Towers or Mar-a-Lago; therefore, the taxpayer would be stuck with the Secret Service bill. I would hope the house arrest would be in Trump Towers so that he does not have access to a golf course and the judge takes away all media acounts (twitter, FaceBook, etc.). That would be painful for Trump. It would be a joke to put Trump in house arrest at Mar-a-Lago.
Please God.Put Trump where he should be. AND IT AIN’T HERE!