The Secret Service spent more than a quarter of a million dollars at President Donald Trump’s properties over the course of five months in 2017, newly released documents show.
The documents outline Secret Service credit card expenditures for Trump properties and businesses between Jan. 27 and June 9, 2017, and were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request via the nonprofit watchdog group Property of the People.
The expenditures — amounting to $254,020.94 in total — raise new questions about the extent to which Trump is personally profiting from the federal government, which is prohibited by the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause. The president has called the provision “phony,” and his lawyers have argued that it only bars him from receiving compensation as part of “an employment-type relationship” with a foreign or domestic government.
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Trump refused to divest from his businesses upon taking office, choosing instead to hand off control of his organization to his two oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric. Ethics advocates warned at the time that the arrangement raised conflict of interest and Emoluments Clause concerns.
