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Re: S.Service Running Out Of Money Protecting TRUMP+Golf Trips Breaking the Bank
Secret Service Director Says Agency Running Out of Money Protecting Trump
Some 42 people require protection under Trump, leading to an increasing number of agents resigning.
The US Secret Service is facing a cash crunch because of the high cost of protecting Donald Trump, his many homes and golf trips, and his large family, its director has revealed.
Secret service agents are resigning and others might have to go without pay after more than 1,000 agents protecting the Trump family hit salary and overtime caps, the head of the US Secret Service said.
Jamie Peck, The Guardian UK, 23 August 2017.
With more than four months to go before the end of the year, director Randolph “Tex” Alles told USA Today the Secret Service can no longer pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out its protective mission, due in part to the size and activities of Trump’s extended family.
Alles said the agency was burdened beyond its typical presidential workload by Trump’s weekend travel schedule to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia, as well as providing protection for his adult children on their business trips and vacations, both domestically and internationally.
“The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,’’ Alles told the newspaper. “I can’t change that. I have no flexibility.’’
Under Trump, 42 people require protection, including 18 members of his family, compared with 31 during the Obama administration, Alles said. The additional workload had led to an increasing number of agents resigning from the ranks of the agency, he revealed.
Without additional funding, the director warned, the agency would not be able to pay agents for the work they have already done. Alles said he had approached lawmakers with a proposal to raise the combined salary and overtime cap for agents from $160,000 a year to $187,000.
Even if the caps are raised, he added, 130 veteran agents would not be fully compensated for hundreds of additional hours they have already booked.
Upcoming events that will further strain the agency’s 1,100 agents include the opening of the UN General Assembly next month, when nearly 150 foreign heads of state converge on New York.
Alles’s comments come during a period of uncertainty at the agency, whose job it is to protect current and former presidents and vice-presidents and their families, as well as combat certain financial crimes.
A panel convened after a September 2014 breach during which an Iraq war veteran suffering form PTSD was stopped by security in the White House with a small knife found that agents often worked “an unsustainable number of hours”. As a result of that and other breaches, then-director Julia Pierson resigned. Subsequently, a recruiting blitz of around 800 agents and officers over the past year has limited the overall drop in numbers to 300.
As the protection agency lurches between crises that have included a prostitution scandal in Colombia, efforts to fix its finances have proved elusive or temporary.
Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings, the senior Democrat on the House oversight and government reform committee who first sounded the alarm on the agency’s funding crisis, said through a spokesperson: “We cannot expect the Secret Service to be able to recruit and keep the best of the best if they are not being paid for these increases [in overtime hours].”
Trump’s security costs have been an issue from almost the outset of his presidency.
His travel costs to Mar-a-Lago, Florida, are estimated at $3m each, for a total of $20m over just his first three months in office.
In all, Trump has made seven trips to Florida, five to his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, and returned to Trump Tower in Manhattan once.
The Trump entourage attracted further attention when the Secret Service recorded $100,000 for hotel bills in Uruguay accompanying Eric Trump on a business trip.
Other trips made by Trump’s sons include trips to the UK, Dominican Republic, British Columbia and Dubai.
Security has also been provided for Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, on a skiing trip to Aspen, Colorado, and Tiffany Trump’s holidays to Germany and Hungary.
Alles characterized the challenges posed by protecting Trump as a new “reality” and described the White House response to the issue as understanding. “They accommodate to the degree they can and to the degree that it can be controlled. “They have been supportive the whole time.’’
END
MORE:
Trump's Endless Mar-a-Lago Trips are Breaking the Bank.
The president has traveled almost every weekend on ‘working vacations’. If the demands of the job are too much for him, he needn’t stay in office
‘The Secret Service has already spent about $60,000 this year on golf cart rentals alone. Much of this cash presumably goes to Trump’s own golf cart businesses.’
The Guardian UK, 23 August 2017.
Back in March, Donald Trump released a budget blueprint that proposed to eliminate some 62 federal agencies and programs – and cripple more of them – by slashing their budgets to far below their actual operating costs.
Now he’s threatening to bankrupt yet one more federal agency: the Secret Service.
According to a report from USA Today, the Secret Service – which is tasked with keeping the president and his family safe – is on course to spend its entire annual budget by September. That’s an overage of about 25%.
More than 1,000 agents have already hit federally mandated salary and overtime caps, prompting the service’s director, Randolph “Tex” Alles, to ask lawmakers to raise the combined salary and overtime cap from $160,000 to $187,000 per year so the agency can get through Trump’s first term. Optimistically, the report makes no mention of a second.
Even if the measure passes, about 130 agents might not get paid in full for hours they’ve already worked, which is a problem. “We cannot expect the Secret Service to be able to recruit and keep the best of the best if they are not being paid for these increases [in overtime hours],” stated Jennifer Werner, a spokesperson for the Maryland congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight and government reform committee.
Unless Secret Service agents are willing to guard Trump – who is rumored to treat them like servants – and his brood for free, the agency is headed for some serious staffing issues.
The reasons for this intense level of spending include the president’s large family, frequent trips and numerous residences.
The number of people under Secret Service protection increased to 42 under Trump, and his grown children often crisscross the world opening new Trump hotels and vacationing in luxurious and expensive places.
Eric Trump’s 2017 business travel to Uruguay “cost the Secret Service nearly $100,000 just for hotel rooms”. I hope they at least came with a complimentary breakfast buffet.
Since taking office, Trump himself has travelled almost every weekend on “working vacations” to properties he owns in New Jersey, Virginia, and Florida, most of which have “golf club” in their names. The Secret Service has already spent about $60,000 this year on golf cart rentals alone.
Much of this cash presumably goes to Trump’s own businesses, lending credence to critics who speculate he only ran for president so he could become as rich as he’s always bragging about being.
(No word yet on whether Trump’s hotels gave the people tasked with keeping their boss alive a break on the price.)
This is the same hardworking public servant who once criticized Barack Obama for golfing when he should have been killing terrorists with his bare hands, or something. (And by “once”, I mean 27 times.)
“I wouldn’t leave the White House,” Trump opined on the campaign trail. “You know, Obama always leaves the White House. Think of it, you’re elected president, you’re in the White House, why would you want to leave? With hundreds and hundreds of securities [sic] … and he could do it from, like, Washington.” Why indeed?
Alles did some damage control in the wake of the USA Today story. In a statement released Monday, he admitted the agency was having financial problems.
“This issue is not one that can be attributed to the current administration’s protection requirements alone, but rather has been an ongoing issue for nearly a decade due to an overall increase in operational tempo,” he said.
Oh, OK.
Are all those trips to Mar-a-Lago evidence that our president just needs one long, endless holiday to get away from the stress of it all? Are all those public rallies a cry for help? Or does our 45th president just not understand the connection between his weekend activities and the federal budget deficit?
Probably the latter, but just in case; there’s a better way out of this, my friend, and it rhymes with “design”.
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