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Keith Schiller walks through Trump Tower’s lobby in August 2017. Within a few weeks, he’d leave his position as director of Oval Office operations and begin providing security for the Republican National Committee.
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The Republican National Committee paid a company belonging to Keith Schiller, Donald Trump’s former director of security in his private business, $585,500 over more than three years.
The firm, named KS Global Group, did business first with the Trump campaign, collecting $10,000 a month from July 2016 to December 2016, as well as $7,500 at the end of the year.
When Trump won the presidency, Schiller moved to the White House with him, assuming the title of director of Oval Office operations. In accordance with his new government duties, Schiller had to file a financial report disclosing his assets. The filing listed just four bank accounts with a total value of somewhere between $66,000 and $166,000. Schiller left his government position in September 2017.
That’s when the RNC money started pouring in: $15,000 a month from October 2017 to December 2021. Attempts to reach Schiller proved unsuccessful. An RNC spokesperson said she’d look into the payments but did not respond to follow-up inquiries.
The payments finally stopped in January, when Trump left office, according to the RNC’s 2021 Federal Election Committee filings. By then, Schiller seemed to be living comfortably. In August 2020, he purchased a four-bedroom house for $1.075 million in Palm Beach County, FL—about 25 miles from Mar-a-Lago.
I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the
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I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just a couple miles from my home. When Trump won the election and refused to divest his business, I stayed on the story, starting a newsletter called 1100 Pennsylvania (named after the hotel’s address) and contributed to Vanity Fair, Politico and NBC News. I’m still interested in Trump, but I’ve broadened my focus to follow the money connected to other politicians as well—both Republicans and Democrats.