Trump Family Spent More On Secret Service For Travel In 1 Year Than Obama Family Did In 7 Years

In the last fiscal year, the Trump family took more trips that required Secret Service protection than the Obama family took in seven years, according to a budget document released by the Treasury Department.

Obama’s family took 133.3 protected trips per year, while Trump’s family has taken an average of 1,625 trips annually. Much of the Trump family’s known travel was to promote Trump Organization businesses, which former President Donald Trump still owns and profits from.

Trump appointed his two adult sons to manage the international businesses that continue to make hundreds of millions of dollars a year, unlike previous presidents who have put their assets in a blind trust.

The high number of protected trips can be partially explained by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump traveling to promote Trump-branded businesses throughout the Trump presidency.

In February 2017, Eric and Don Jr. flew to Dubai to open a Trump-branded golf club, which cost the Secret Service more than $200,000. The same month, Eric flew to the Dominican Republic to potentially relaunch a failed Trump-branded resort project, which cost $20,000. Eric Trump has visited Uruguay twice for Trump Organization businesses, costing taxpayers $97,830 in 2017 and $80,786 in 2019.

The Trump Organization has yet to pay back American taxpayers for the security taxpayers have subsidized when Trump’s family members travel to support a business.

The increase in the amount of Secret Service protection has caused the Secret Service to justify the spike in protective travel costs in its congressional budget requests for the past two years.

The Secret Service 2020 and 2021 budget requests contain explanations of some of the expense driving costs that necessitate a larger budget. When Trump became president in 2017, protected travel spiked massively. In the last two fiscal years, the Trump family has taken 3,249 protected trips. The Obama family took a total of 933.

Additionally, some of the spikes can be accounted for because Trump has five children, four of whom are adults, whereas Obama has two.