Trump's early trips to Mar-a-Lago cost nearly $14 million: Watchdog report
President Donald Trump's four trips to his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida over four weeks in March and Feb. 2017, including his summit with the Japanese prime minister, cost the government nearly $14 million, according to the results of a nonpartisan government watchdog's investigation obtained by ABC News.
The accounting, which reveals that the government also paid roughly $60,000 to Trump's Palm Beach property, provides one of the clearest pictures to date of the costs incurred by the government for the president's travel to his properties.
The report, from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan watchdog that works as an investigative arm of Congress, also found that the U.S. Secret Service spent $396,000 protecting the president’s sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, on three international trips in early 2017.
Eric Trump traveled to Uruguay and the Dominican Republic on Trump Organization business, while both brothers and their spouses traveled to the United Arab Emirates. According to the report, both the Trumps and their Secret Service details flew commercial on all three trips.
Trump spent at least part of 14 days, and six full days, in Palm Beach across the four weeks scrutinized by the Government Accountability Office, according to an ABC News analysis of the president’s schedule.
Of the $13.6 million spent by the government on Trump's four trips to Florida, $10.6 million was spent on government aircraft and boats, while another $3 million was spent on transporting, lodging and feeding government personnel associated with the trips, according to the GAO.
The Defense Department and the Department of Homeland Security incurred a majority of those costs, according to GAO, approximately $8.5 million and $5.1 million, respectively.
Other agencies, including the State and Justice Departments, spent approximately $29,000 on the four trips to Florida, on expenses that included Cabinet member and agency staff travel. The Justice Department, for example, spent $18,000 to transport then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his detail and support staff to Mar-a-Lago for one trip.
