Donald Trump has been using his position within the U.S. government to enrich himself, and not just by collecting tabs from foreign leaders who stay at his D.C. hotel, or charging the Secret Service half a million in golf cart rental. This week has revealed two stories in which Trump blatantly extracted money from the U.S. treasury and inserted it directly in the ever-open maw of his starving European golf resorts.
The first story came out of Ireland, where Mike Pence was supposed to be meeting with Irish officials in Dublin … only he chose to stay 180 miles away at Trump’s golf resort in Doonbeg. Not only did this meant that every room occupied by Pence, his staff, and the Secret Service was directly connected to Trump’s wallet, it also meant that every time Pence actually wanted to attend the meetings that had supposedly brought him to Ireland, he had to board a military helicopter for a trip that was considerable more expensive than taking a car. Pence asserted that he had stayed at Doonbeg “for security,” even though Dublin contains a little thing called the U.S. Embassy. The housing there proved secure enough for Ronald Reagan when he visited the country, even though that was at a time of considerably more tensions in the Irish capital. Dublin was also secure enough for Joe Biden when he stopped by.
But Pence spending his week at Trump’s Irish resort starts to look like pence when compared to the pounds directed Trump’s way by the other big golf resort scandal of the week.
As Politico reported on Friday, Trump has been using the military to pump money into his failing resort at Turnberry in Scotland. In 2017, that property lost $4.5 million. But that number shot up by $3 million in 2018, not because Trump’s course gained a sudden popularity with Scots or international travelers. But because Trump has been having air crews make an unnecessary overnight stay at his property on trips between the U.S. and Kuwait. Those stops are losing millions for the U.S. … but don’t worry. Trump is finding it.
The House Oversight Committee began looking into what’s going on at Turnberry in April, prompted by an incident in which a C-17 military transport jet stopped there overnight both going and coming from Kuwait. The trip to Kuwait, while long, is not necessarily an overnight affair for military planes any more than it is for commercial airliners. The daily nonstop from New York makes the trip to Kuwait City in just over 12 hours. However, it’s not that unusual for planes on this long run to make a stop, especially since these large transports need refueling.
What is telling is that rerouting the plane for a visit to Turnberry meant fueling at nearby Prestwick Airport, which means paying higher commercial fuel rates for planes that would otherwise touch down and top off at U.S. military bases. Crews on overnight stays have rooms available at the bases, or at discount hotels nearby. Previous trips by the same plane included fueling stops at U.S. bases in Germany or Spain … but definitely not in the U.K., which required a significant change in the plane’s course and resulted in higher costs all around.
That plane was not alone. An $11 million fuel bill from Prestwick indicates that a lot of military planes have been stopping by, and a lot of military personnel have been getting ferried a dozen miles away to Trump’s Turnberry resort. But the U.S. has been getting something for its money. In the form of discount rooms and free rounds of golf.
House Oversight Chairman Elijah Cummings has written to the military in pursuit of information. So far, the Pentagon has refused to cough up a single document explaining why they’re moving planes to Trump’s Highland Mar-a-lago at a cost to taxpayers. But the idea that Trump is using the military’s budget to keep his drowning golf course afloat seems particularly egregious in light of this week’s announcement that Trump is stealing funds from 127 military projects in order to build a few miles of his border fence.
Even Mitch McConnell has said that he will fight against the $2 million that Trump is taking away from funds that was supposed to build a new school on a Kentucky military base. Perhaps it will make Mitch feel better knowing that Trump isn’t just wasting that money that was meant to help the children of military families on a stupid fence … he’s also simply pocketing it. What’s been spent on unnecessary fuel stops at Prestwick Airport alone would pay for that school five times over. And Trump’s surprise revenue increase at Turnberry looks to be about two middle schools worth.
Trump is misusing funds, at every level, to enrich himself. And in a week where he’s already forced both Homeland Security and NOAA to humiliate themselves in defense of his “Alabama hurricane” screwup, now he’s forcing the Air Force to destroy any semblance of accountability simply over his never ending greed. But hey, there were those free rounds of golf.