A report released by a Democrat panel in the US House of Representatives on Friday said former US president Donald Trump used the US Secret Service as his ‘personal government ATM’ because he overcharged the government agency at his hotels, at times more than the guests. NBC News, who first reported the development, said the House Oversight Committee obtained documents from Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars, that Donald Trump’s hotel charged his Secret Service detail a room rate of $1,185 during a stay in November, 2017, which was over the approved $201 government per diem rate.
“(Lawmakers) must put legal barriers in place now to prevent the kind of rip-off corruption our Founding Fathers so strongly opposed,” Maryland Democrat House member Jamie Raskin, who has made Trump’s finances a particular focus after becoming the panel’s head.
The US House Of Representatives’ Oversight Committee investigates government operations, ensuring accountability and efficiency by examining issues like fraud, waste, and abuse across federal agencies.
“While this is an exceedingly small window into the opaque web of more than 500 corporations, limited liability companies, and trusts … it is enough to reveal hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments he accepted while in office from domestic sources,” the report listing the findings led by his panel said.
The report was made based on findings from guest logs for Trump International Hotel in Washington DC between September 2017 and August 2018.
Raskin earlier this year released a report claiming that Trump received at least $7.8 million from foreign countries, including China, across his several properties during his presidential tenure.
The findings showed Trump’s hotel charged the Secret Service nearly twice as much to stay in the hotel as compared to other guests which included foreign governments and companies.
“Given the need to enforce the US Constitution against both foreign and domestic emoluments corruption, in the coming days, I will work with my Democratic Colleagues on a legislative fix and hope that my Republican colleagues will join us in this effort,” he added.
A Republican spokesperson responded to the allegations while speaking to US news outlet Axios: “Ranking Member Raskin and Democrats continue to expose their hypocrisy as they suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. Unlike the Bidens, the Trumps actually have businesses and made money from the services they provided. Today’s report is more recycled garbage from the Democrats’ fruitless and close to a decade-long investigation of President Trump”.
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