Pentagon spent $184,000 at Trump’s Scotland resort

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has spent at least $184,000 at the Trump Turnberry resort in Scotland since 2017, as it sent several dozen crews from flights making a refueling stopover to the resort hotel, the Pentagon said in a letter sent to congressional investigators.

The spending figure from the Defense Department came after the House Oversight and Reform Committee asked in June about a surge in Air Force flights stopping for refueling at the Glasgow Prestwick Airport in Scotland. Flight crews and passengers from some of those flights spent the night at the Trump Turnberry resort, about 25 miles away.

Between August 2017 and July 2019, the Defense Department records show $124,579 was spent at Trump Turnberry, or an average cost of $189.04 per overnight stay. That suggests a total of about 660 individual rooms were paid for at the hotel during that period.

The Defense Department also reported that there was an additional $59,729 in travel charges associated with the Trump Turnberry that could not be tied to actual travel vouchers, bringing the total since 2017 to about $185,000.

That total is way up compared to the prior two years, when department records show that a total of $64,380 was spent through government travel charge cards at Trump Turnberry.

The number of U.S. military flights stopping for refueling and crew rest at Glasgow Prestwick Airport has jumped since Donald Trump became president, with the Pentagon spending nearly $17 million at the airport since January 2017 on refueling and other services. The Defense Department said the shift to the Prestwick airport had taken place because it is ideally located on the air route between the Middle East and other locations in Europe and it is open every day and around the clock.

Sen. Gary Peters, DMich., introduced legislation last week that would ban federal spending at properties owned by the president, vice president or any member of the cabinet.

“Since President Trump took office, the American people have witnessed an unprecedented arrangement that has funneled taxpayer dollars into the president’s pockets,” Peters said. “As elected officials, we must hold ourselves to the highest ethical standards and ensure that we are using taxpayer dollars responsibly.”