Then-President Donald Trump joined Naval Academy cadets during the the Army v. Navy football game in Philadelphia on Dec. 14, 2019. (Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
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Newly released documents reveal that Donald Trump’s businesses charged his Department of Defense $976,000 during the first three years of his presidency, an amount that appears far greater than previously reported.
The Pentagon produced the documents in May, more than two years after Trump left the White House, in response to a November 2019 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from ethics watchdog American Oversight. The previous publicly known high for Defense Department spending at Trump properties appears to be $300,000, which CNN reported in April 2019.
“As far as we can tell, this is the first time these specific expenses have been reported—and they are long overdue,” said Heather Sawyer, American Oversight’s executive director. “While we expect to receive receipts of government spending at Trump properties for years to come, we urge the government to pick up the pace so that the American people have this information as they consider Trump’s re-election efforts.”
The Defense Department’s disclosure broke down spending by property and year. It only included details about one small individual disbursement, $1,680 the New Jersey National Guard spent at a Trump golf club on meals during its monthly inactive duty training in December 2017.
Neither a Department of Defense spokesperson nor the civilian employee who oversaw the government’s disclosure responded immediately to requests for comment. Sawyer attributed the government’s three-and-a-half-year response time to understaffed FOIA offices and an environment where oversight and accountability often are delayed.
The Defense Department’s spending was spread across at least 15 different Trump properties, covering eight states and four foreign countries. Trump’s Miami resort was the biggest beneficiary, collecting $274,000, followed by his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey with $266,000 and one of his Scottish resorts with $181,000. At least $760,000 of taxpayer money was disbursed at properties Trump owns entirely. The rest went to businesses in where he is a partial owner or has a licensing or management agreement.
“As president, Trump’s refusal to divest from his businesses created an environment rife with the potential for abuse. And during his administration, Trump’s properties became vessels for self-enrichment,” said Sawyer. “Donald Trump is now running for president again. His ‘old’ habit of enriching himself at taxpayer expense deserves renewed scrutiny as he seeks another term.”
Spokespeople for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to inquiries.
After Trump decided to retain his business while in office, a flurry of lawsuits emerged. Most of them went nowhere. On Wednesday, House Democrats dropped a lawsuit against the General Services Administration that sought documents related to Trump’s lease of a government-owned building. Originally filed in 2018, the Supreme Court agreed to hear it last month. But by then, the lawmakers, now in the minority, appear to have had no interest suing an agency overseen by a president in their own party regarding a hotel that Trump has since sold.
There’s no full public accounting of how much taxpayers shelled out to the Trump Organization during the Trump administration. A 2020 Washington Post report estimated the total was at least $2.5 million. His properties took in an additional $22 million from political committees between when his campaign kicked off in 2015 and July 2020, according to CNN. That figure plummeted after voters ousted him from the White House.