Picking Up The Bill

Report: Defense Dept. Spent $140,000 at Trump Properties

Includes $59,000 dropped at Mar-a-Lago.

Defense Department employees charged almost $140,000 at Trump-branded properties in the first eight months of the Trump presidency, CNN reports, in the latest piece of evidence that taxpayer money is flowing into Trump family businesses. Charges on department-issued Visa cards show military personnel spent as much as $59,000 on lodging and food at a building that appears to be Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The costs tend to coincide with Trump’s visits to his various properties, including $9,618.78 at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club after he spent four days there in May 2017. However, some charges, including 113 at the Trump International Las Vegas Hotel totaling $35,652.44, do not overlap with presidential visits. The Daily Beast reported Wednesday that Pentagon officials spent $17,000 at the Trump Ocean Club hotel in Panama, for reasons that are not clear. CNN said the White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. The government-watchdog group Property of the People obtained the documents through Freedom of Information Act requests.