Trump International Hotel Las Vegas charged the Secret Service $12,368.66 during a three night trip to the West Coast in February 2020, according to records obtained by CREW from a Freedom of Information Act request. The receipt adds to a growing public tally of taxpayer money spent at Trump properties during his presidency, a sum that continues to balloon even after his departure.

During the trip, Trump spoke in California, Arizona, and Colorado. Instead of staying locally, Trump returned to Las Vegas each evening to stay at his own hotel, likely racking up an estimated $1.1 million in taxpayer-funded Air Force One trips. When asked why he didn’t find more convenient accommodations, Trump blamed the Secret Service, telling reporters “the schedule is set by the Secret Service. We do what they want us to.” An email from the Department of Homeland Security to CREW said there are no records showing that the Secret Service prefered Trump’s hotel.

This spending adds to a larger body of evidence showing how President Trump used the presidency to pour taxpayer money into his businesses. Hundreds of receipts that continue to trickle out after his time in the White House show that the Secret Service spent a huge amount of money at Trump properties throughout his presidency. In fact, the Washington Post documented that Trump’s private company charged the federal government more than $2.5 million during Trump’s years in office, even though Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump said during his father’s presidency that Trump and his entourage “stay at our properties for free.”

Many of these payments are still being brought to light. This is just one of six trips that Trump made to this hotel, out of 547 visits to his own properties during his time in office in total. Vice President Pence also made a visit to Trump’s Las Vegas hotel where the Secret Service paid more than $20,000 for rooms and “resort fees.”

This was also not the first time that Trump used the Secret Service to cover up an attempt to spend money at one of his properties. In 2019 Trump aggressively asserted that the agency encouraged his administration to hold the 2020 G7 summit at his Trump National Doral Golf resort in Miami, Florida. In November 2019 CREW received records that undermined this claim, showing that in reality, Doral was added to the list of considered sites at the very last minute. 

By now, there is no doubt that Trump used the presidency to funnel money into the Trump Organization properties that he refused to divest from when he took office. Despite being three months out of office, we’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg of what we’ll discover of Trump’s presidential profiteering.

Read More in Investigations