In a final “up yours” to the American taxpayer, supposed billionaire Donald Trump signed an order extending round-the-clock Secret Service Protection for an additional six months to Donald Trump, Jr, Eric Trump and his wife, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, and Tiffany Trump. He also extended Secret Service protection for six months to Steven Mnuchin, Mark Meadows, and former National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien. www.washingtonpost.com/…
Under the law, former Presidents, their spouses and children under the age of 16 are entitled to lifetime Secret Service Protection and former Vice Presidents and their spouses are entitled to Secret Service protection for six months after leaving office, but the President can order the extension of Secret Service protection to others. This authority has been used previously to extend Secret Service protection for Presidential children when they are past 16 but still in school, including the daughters of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, but apparently never to adult children of the President who are well past their teenage years or to various administration officials.
What makes this particularly outrageous in the case of Donald Trump is that (a) he claims to be a billionaire, and (b) his adult children seem to have a taste for vacations in very expensive resort locations and on foreign trips, where the ordinary expenses of the Secret Service are much higher than they would be if they were simply working real jobs and living ordinary lifestyles. If Trump really thought it was important for Donald, Jr., Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany and their families to have security for the next six months, he should be paying for it himself or letting them pay for it themselves. But I guess that wouldn’t permit more grifting by such things as vacationing and Trump-owned resorts and forcing the Secret Service to pay for lodging there, golf cart rental, etc.
Also outrageous is the extension of Secret Service protection for former Trump officials. Mnuchin is a former investment banker with a reported net worth in thei neighborhood of $300 million. He can damned well pay for his own security if he thinks he needs it. Robert O’Brien certainly isn’t wealthy in the category of Mnuchin, but he has a reported net worth of in excess of a million dollars. Mark Meadows is the “poor boy” of this group, with a reported net worth in the high six figures, but I can discern no reason why this former White House chief of staff is any more in need of Secret Service protection that any of his predecessors who were fired by Trump.
Just one final incident of grifting and a parting middle finger salute to American taxpayers.