$60M extra for Trump
More funds are sought to protect the leader’s home and travel.
washington» The U.S. Secret Service requested $60 million in additional funding for the next year, offering the most precise estimate yet of the escalating costs for travel and protection resulting from the unusually complicated lifestyle of the Trump family, according to internal agency documents reviewed by The Washington Post.
Nearly half of the additional money, $26.8 million, would pay to protect President Trump’s family and private home in New York’s Trump Tower, the documents show, while $33 million would be spent on travel costs incurred by “the president, vice president and other visiting heads of state.”
The documents, part of the Secret Service’s request for the fiscal 2018 budget, reflect the costly surprise facing Secret Service agents tasked with guarding the president’s large and far-flung family, accommodating their ambitious travel schedules and fortifying the three-floor Manhattan penthouse where first lady Melania Trump and her son, Barron, live.
Trump has spent most of his weekends since inauguration at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, and his sons have traveled the world to promote Trump properties with Secret Service agents in tow.
The documents reviewed by The Post did not show how the new budget requests compare to the funding needs for past presidents, and such figures are not public information. The Secret Service and Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the protective agency, declined to provide cost breakdowns and have said in the past that such figures are confidential, citing security concerns.
A person familiar with internal Secret Service budget discussions said the requests for additional funding, prepared in late February, were rejected by the Office of Management and Budget, an arm of the White House.
That means the agency will likely have to divert other spending to handle the additional burden.
While best known for protecting the president, Secret Service agents also investigate cybercrimes, counterfeit-money operations and cases involving missing and exploited minors.