White House Tried To Move CNN Reporter To Back Of Briefing Room Before Trump Walked Out

President Donald Trump is not a fan of CNN.

He clashes almost daily with reporters from the liberal cable network, and he once had a White House pass pulled from a reporter, Jim Acosta.

Trump got into another battle with the network last week — and lost.

A White House official on Friday ordered a CNN reporter to swap her front-row seat with another reporter at the back of the briefing just before Trump appeared for his daily press conference with the White House Coronavirus Task Force.

The reporter, CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins, refused to swap seats, as did the other reporter. The official then said the Secret Service would get involved.

The seating chart in the briefing room is set by the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA), currently headed up by ABC’s Jonathan Karl, another reporter Trump doesn’t like.

Chris Johnson, a reporter with the Washington Blade, sent out a print pool report to other reporters detailing what happened.

“Earlier today before the briefing, a White House official instructed the print pooler to take CNN’s seat in the briefing room because the seating would be swapped for the briefing. Given the seating assignment is under the jurisdiction of the White House Correspondents’ Association, not the White House, pooler refused to move. The White House official then informed the print pooler swapping wasn’t an option and the Secret Service was involved. Again, pooler refused to move, citing guidance from the WHCA. The briefing proceeded with both CNN and print pooler sitting in their respective assigned seats,” Johnson wrote.

Friday’s briefing marked the first time Trump had held the briefing and then left without taking questions.

Other reporters applauded the pair for fighting back.

“We just got word the briefing will begin in one minute. Reporters were not moved. Shout out to @chrisjohnson82 @kaitlancollins and the @whca for standing their ground,” wrote Hunter Walker, White House correspondent with Yahoo News.

Trump had clashed with Collins just the day before. In his briefing Thursday, Trump dismissed a question from a reporter about North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s health, saying it arose from an “incorrect” report from CNN. Collins tried to ask a follow-up question, but Trump interrupted her.

“No, that’s enough,” he said. “The problem is, you don’t write the truth.” Collins tried to ask again, but Trump said, “No, not CNN. I told you, CNN is fake news. Don’t talk to me.”

Acosta’s press pass was revoked in November 2018 after a press conference held by Trump. The White House rebuked Acosta for “placing his hands on a young woman” after he refused to give up the microphone, pushing a White House intern’s hand away as she tried to take back the microphone.

“As a result of today’s incident, the White House is suspending the hard pass of the reporter involved until further notice,” Press Secretary Sarah Sanders wrote on Twitter, adding a video when she said, “We stand by our decision.”

Acosta sued and got his pass back.

[Daily Wire]

Trump hotels charge Secret Service up to $650 per night while protecting him

Secret Service personnel traveling with President Trump to his private luxury properties in Palm Beach, Fla., and Bedminster, N.J., pay rates as high at $650 per night for lodging, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post.

The Post investigation tallied the amount of taxpayer dollars spent in Trump’s properties and found that the Secret Service spent $159,000 at Trump’s D.C. hotel in his first year alone. In the president’s out-of-state properties, the Trump company is recorded as charging as much as $17,000 per month for rent.

The newspaper noted that after a thorough search of rentals in the area for comparable homes, the average cost for rent was $3,400. 

Trump previously told The Hill in 2015 that he “would rarely leave the White House because there’s so much work to be done,” but currently he often visits his properties in Florida and New Jersey, Secret Service in tow. 

In an October interview with Yahoo News, Eric Trump, the executive vice president of The Trump Organization, answered questions about the president’s decision to host the 2020 Group of Seven summit at the president’s golf club, Trump National Doral Miami in Florida.

“If my father travels, they stay at our properties for free,” Trump said. “So everywhere that he goes, if he stays at one of his places, the government actually spends, meaning it saves a fortune because if they were to go to a hotel across the street, they’d be charging them $500 a night, whereas, you know we charge them, like $50.”

Those numbers don’t match the Post’s findings. Trump told the Post that the company is legally required to charge a fee, though they were unable to find what law he was citing.

The Post’s report comes just hours before an appeals court ruled that Democrats cannot sue President Trump over emoluments claims.

More than 200 House and Senate Democrats alleged that the president’s holdings and refusal to put his business assets into a blind trust violates the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, which prohibits federal officials from receiving gifts from foreign countries. 

The lawmakers’ lawsuit claimed that foreign diplomats’ patronage to Trump hotels is exactly the kind of entanglement that the framers of the Constitution hoped to avoid. 

Separately, Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have requested details on Trump’s travel costs as part of negotiations over legislation regulating the Secret Service. However, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has told the committee that he opposes releasing that information until December, after the general election.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

[The Hill]

Trump Wants to Keep Secret Service Travel Bill Out of Public View

The White House is desperately trying to keep President Donald Trump‘s exceptionally hefty Secret Service bill from being released in full to the public–at least not before the 2020 presidential election.

According to the Washington Post, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is attempting to negotiate an embargo on that information. Congressional Democrats, however, are insisting that the total amount of money spent by the public on Trump’s travels be released.

Those fierce discussions are reportedly being held in the context of a draft bill that would return the Secret Service to the purview of the Treasury Department–the traditional umbrella agency for the aptly-named law enforcement and computer crimes organization tasked with guarding the president and his family as well as other high-profile members of the U.S. government.

Founded by infamously violent union-buster Allan Pinkerton in 1865, the Secret Service initially served to combat the counterfeiting of U.S. currency. In 2003, control over the agency was gifted to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of the fallout from the September 11, 2001 attacks and the so-called “War on Terror.”

Mnuchin has been itching to return the Secret Service to its original home for some time and Democrats have been more than happy to oblige that request.

But congressional Democrats have one major condition: the Secret Service would have to disclose the full amount of taxpayer dollars spent on protecting Trump and his family–including his adult children Ivanka TrumpJared Kushner and Donald Trump Jr.–during their frequent travels within 120 days of the bill’s passage.

Mnuchin has reportedly attempted to meet the Democrats in the middle and agreed to such disclosures on a relaxed timeline. The Mnuchin-supplied timeline, perhaps not entirely so curiously, would have the cost disclosure occur only after the 2020 election. The timing dust-up has been a point of serious contention.

Per the Post‘s report:

In a statement, the Treasury Department confirmed that Mnuchin has been working with Secret Service Director James Murray and congressional committees on a bill to transfer the Secret Service from the Department of Homeland Security to Treasury, but did not address the dispute about the reporting requirement.

“Conversations about the return of the Secret Service to the Treasury Department are ongoing, and we decline to comment on individual aspects of those conversations,”an anonymous Treasury official told the outlet.

But Democrats are said to be adamant and insist that the public has a right to know how much they’re paying for the Trump family’s repeat travels to their personally-owned hotels and golf resorts in Florida and New Jersey.

Why all the concern? Democrats likely view the information as an effective and useful political prize; the White House an onerous liability and embarrassment.

As Law&Crime previously reported, President Trump’s extensive golf habit has already cost the public far in excess what former president Barack Obama’s did—and Trump accomplished that feat in a stunning three years compared to Obama’s eight.

As of 2020, Trump’s golf habit alone has cost taxpayers in the ballpark of some $115 million. During Obama’s presidency, the former first family spent roughly $114 million in public funds on travel total.

As noted, Obama golfed quite a bit as well—and was often taken to task for indulgence in the country club sport.

But the Secret Service travel tab for Trump is seen as particularly problematic because he was one of Obama’s biggest critics on the golf front—using it as an attack line during the 2016 presidential election—and insisted he’d largely abandon the game if elected.

“I love golf,” then-candidate Trump told a Florida crowd in 2016, “but if I were in the White House, I don’t think I’d ever see Turnberry again. I don’t ever think I’d see Doral again. I own Doral in Miami. I don’t think I’d ever see many of the places that I have. I don’t really ever think I’d see anything–I just want to stay in the White House and work my ass off and make great deals.”

Now one of those would-be deals is an effort to keep his publicly-subsidized golf games on the down low.

[Law and Crime]

Trump’s golf cart rentals cost taxpayers more than $300K

President Trump‘s golf cart rentals in the U.S. have cost taxpayers $300,675 since he took office, TMZ reported.

Federal documents indicate many of these expenses come from Trump’s time at Mar-a-Lago, according to the online tabloid. Secret Service uses the golf carts to follow Trump on his golfing excursions.

The total expense of Trump’s golf outings, including Secret Service protection, comes out to an estimated $77 million, according to TMZ. The more than $300,000 figure only refers to Trump’s domestic golf outings, the news outlet reported.

Critics have often slammed Trump over the cost and frequency of his golf trips. Most recently, the president was met with large protests when he played at a Virginia golf course on the day of the late Sen. John McCain‘s (R-Ariz.) funeral at the beginning of September.

Democratic lawmakers in July penned a letter to the acting inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security demanding details on Secret Service expenses during Trump’s trip to his golf course in Scotland earlier that month. The Democrats were responding to a report that indicated Trump’s time on his Turnberry golf course cost taxpayers up to $1.2 million.

Some have accused the president of profiting from his golf trips personally, as he typically visits his own clubs, an accusation that the Trump Organization has pushed back on.

“For United States government patronage, our hotels charge room rates only at cost and we do not profit from these stays,” George Sorial, the Trump Organization’s executive vice president, said in a statement to People Magazine.

[The Hill]

Secret Service paid Mar-a-Lago at least $63,000, documents show

The U.S. Secret Service paid tens of thousands of dollars to President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in the span of a few months, according to documents obtained by CNN.

The expense forms show that taxpayer dollars have flowed into Trump’s private club as a result of his repeated visits to the so-called Winter White House, which pulls in millions a year from members who pay a premium for its oceanside amenities and bedroom suites.

Most of the $63,700 in payments from the Secret Service to Mar-a-Lago were made between February and April, and were categorized as hotel costs on government expense forms. The payments are detailed in forms and more than a dozen invoices on Mar-a-Lago letterhead ranging from $1,300 to $11,050.

The purposes of the expenses were not spelled out in the documents, which were redacted before CNN reviewed them. The redactions make it unclear whether there were additional payments to Mar-a-Lago.

Experts said the bills could be for rooms rented to agents, space leased for communications equipment or other purposes.

The payments to Mar-a-Lago are just a fraction of the total Secret Service costs detailed in the records CNN reviewed, which include bills from other hotels, car rental companies and event services in South Florida.

Although the Secret Service routinely pays private businesses for costs that arise while protecting the president, government ethics hawks argue Trump may personally profit from his visits. Or worse, they allege, he’s violated the Constitution.

The payments appear to overlap with some of Trump’s weekend visits to the club in Palm Beach, Florida. After his inauguration, Trump spent a total of 25 full or partial days at the Mar-a-Lago between February 3 and April 16.

Trump transferred Mar-a-Lago and his other business holdings into a trust while he serves as president. But he refused to follow precedent by divesting his holdings, and he stands to accrue any business profits when he leaves office.

His financial disclosure forms for this year show that Mar-a-Lago made $37 million in revenue between January 2016 and April 2017. The club raised its membership initiation fee in January to $200,000, double what it was a year earlier.

While the Secret Service payments are a small share of the revenue, critics of the administration, along with prominent experts in government ethics, say Secret Service payments to Mar-A-Lago could violate a constitutional provision meant to prevent self-dealing and corruption.

The domestic emoluments clause bars the president from accepting gifts, or emoluments, other than his compensation from the federal, state, or local governments.

Whether the Mar-A-Lago charges amount to “gifts” is up for debate. It may rest on how much Secret Service paid for services or rooms at the resort. That information is redacted on the documents reviewed by CNN.

“The president risks violating the domestic emoluments clause if his company is making money off of the Secret Service,” said Richard Painter, the former White House ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush. “To avoid that, Mar-a-Lago should either charge Secret Service a rate federal employees are authorized to pay for a hotel room under ordinary circumstances or not charge at all.”

But waiving all charges could create additional legal issues under rules that prohibit gifts to government agencies.

Earlier this year, a government transparency group called Property of the People obtained a receipt from the Coast Guard for a stay at Mar-a-Lago. That document revealed the government was billed the so-called rack rate — an industry term that usually suggests the non-discounted price for a hotel room. That charge amounted to $1,092 for a two-night stay.

Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent who served in the Presidential Protection Division, pointed out that, putting ethics arguments aside, the president always requires some level of Secret Service protection.

Although some agents could stay at nearby hotels, he said at least some members of the detail must stay with the president day and night in the event of an emergency.

“The Secret Service will make every attempt to be financially cautious, but there is an operational necessity for particular people to stay in close proximately to the president 24 hours a day,” said Wackrow, a CNN law enforcement analyst. “And they can’t sleep in the hallway.”

He said additional charges to the Secret Service could arise from the need for storage space for communications equipment, or for additional workspace.

The Mar-a-Lago expenses, detailed in records released by the Secret Service after CNN submitted a Freedom of Information Act request, are not the first payments made by the Secret Service for the use of a property owned by a White House official.

Federal contracting data show the Secret Service has paid about $170,000 to rent former Vice President Joe Biden’s property in Wilmington, Delaware since 2011.

Democrats have seized on other examples of government money flowing into Trump’s businesses to support criticism that the president may be profiting personally from his office.

In August, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee requested documents from federal agencies that detail taxpayer money going to products or services “provided by businesses owned by or affiliated with the Trump Organization.”

A spokesperson said the committee is in the process of collecting responses.

The Trump Organization and the White House did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

[CNN]

Secret Service out of money to pay agents because of Trump’s frequent travel

The Secret Service can no longer afford to pay hundreds of agents it needs to carry out an expanded protective mission – in large part due to the sheer size of President Trump’s family and efforts necessary to secure their multiple residences up and down the East Coast.

Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles, in an interview with USA TODAY, said more than 1,000 agents have already hit the federally mandated caps for salary and overtime allowances that were meant to last the entire year.

The agency has faced a crushing workload since the height of the contentious election season, and it has not relented in the first seven months of the administration. Agents must protect Trump – who has traveled almost every weekend to his properties in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia – and his adult children whose business trips and vacations have taken them across the country and overseas.

“The president has a large family, and our responsibility is required in law,” Alles said. “I can’t change that. I have no flexibility.”

Alles said the service is grappling with an unprecedented number of White House protectees. Under Trump, 42 people have protection, a number that includes 18 members of his family. That’s up from 31 during the Obama administration.

Overwork and constant travel has also been driving a recent exodus from the Secret Service ranks, yet without congressional intervention to provide additional funding, Alles will not even be able pay agents for the work they have already done.

The compensation crunch is so serious that the director has begun discussions with key lawmakers to raise the combined salary and overtime cap for agents, from $160,000 per year to $187,000 for at least the duration of Trump’s first term.

But even if such a proposal was approved, about 130 veteran agents would not be fully compensated for hundreds of hours already amassed, according to the agency.

“I don’t see this changing in the near term,” Alles said.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers expressed deep concern for the continuing stress on an agency, first thrust into into turmoil five years ago with disclosures about sexual misconduct by agents in Colombia and subsequent White House security breaches.

A special investigative panel formed after a particularly egregious 2014 White House breach also found that that agents and uniform officers worked “an unsustainable number of hours,” which also contributed to troubling attrition rates.

While about 800 agents and uniformed officers were hired during the past year as part of an ongoing recruiting blitz to bolster the ranks, attrition limited the agency’s net staffing gain to 300, according to agency records. And last year, Congress had to approve a one-time fix to ensure that 1,400 agents would be compensated for thousands of hours of overtime earned above compensation limits. Last year’s compensation shortfall was first disclosed by USA TODAY.

“It is clear that the Secret Service’s demands will continue to be higher than ever throughout the Trump administration,” said Jennifer Werner, a spokesperson for Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings.

Cummings, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee who was the first lawmaker to sound the alarm after last year’s disclosure that hundreds of agents had maxed out on pay, recently spoke with Alles and pledged support for a more permanent fix, Werner said.

“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).”

South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy, the Republican chairman of the House oversight panel, is “working with other committees of jurisdiction to explore ways in which we can best support” the Secret Service, his spokesperson Amanda Gonzalez said.

Talks also are underway in the Senate, where the Secret Service has briefed members of the Homeland Security Committee, which directly oversees the the agency’s operations.

“Ensuring the men and women who put their lives on the line protecting the president, his family and others every day are getting paid fairly for their work is a priority,” said Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, the panel’s top Democrat. “I’m committed to working with my colleagues on both sides to get this done.”

Without some legislative relief, though, at least 1,100 agents – for now – would not be eligible for overtime even as one of the agency’s largest protective assignments looms next month. Nearly 150 foreign heads of state are expected to converge on New York City for the United Nations General Assembly.

Because of the sheer number of high-level dignitaries, the United Nations gathering is traditionally designated by the U.S., as a “National Special Security Event” and requires a massive deployment of security resources managed by the Secret Service.

That will be even trickier this year. “Normally, we are not this tapped out,” said Alles, whom Trump appointed to his post in April.

The agents who have reached their compensation limits this year represent about a third of the Secret Service workforce, which was pressed last year to secure both national political conventions in the midst of a rollicking campaign cycle. The campaign featured regular clashes involving protesters at Trump rallies across the country, prompting the Secret Service at one point to erect bike racks as buffers around stages to thwart potential rushes from people in the crowd.

Officials had hoped that the agency’s workload would normalize after the inauguration, but the president’s frequent weekend trips, his family’s business travel and the higher number of protectees has made that impossible.

Since his inauguration, Trump has taken seven trips to his estate in Mar-a-Lago, Fla., traveled to his Bedminster, N.J., golf club five times and returned to Trump Tower in Manhattan once.

Trump’s frequent visits to his “winter White House” and “summer White House” are especially challenging for the agency, which must maintain a regular security infrastructure at each – while still allowing access to paying members and guests.

Always costly in manpower and equipment, the president’s jaunts to Mar-a-Lago are estimated to cost at least $3 million each, based on a General Accounting Office estimate for similar travel by former President Obama. The Secret Service has spent some $60,000 on golf cart rentals alone this year to protect Trump at both Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster.

The president, First Lady Melania Trump and the couple’s youngest son Barron – who maintained a separate detail in Trump Tower until June – aren’t the only ones on the move with full-time security details in tow.

Trump’s other sons, Trump Organization executives Donald Jr. and Eric, based in New York, also are covered by security details including when they travel frequently to promote Trump-branded properties in other countries.

A few examples: Earlier this year, Eric Trump’s business travel to Uruguay cost the Secret Service nearly $100,000 just for hotel rooms. Other trips included the United Kingdom and the Dominican Republic. In February, both sons and their security details traveled to Vancouver for the opening of new Trump hotel there, and to Dubai to officially open a Trump International Golf Club.

In March, security details accompanied part of the family, including Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner on a skiing vacation in Aspen, Colo. Even Tiffany Trump, the president’s youngest daughter, took vacation to international locales such as Germany and Hungary with her boyfriend, which also require Secret Service protection.

While Alles has characterized the security challenges posed by the Trump administration as a new “reality” of the agency’s mission, the former Marine Corps major general said he has discussed the agency’s staffing limitations with the White House so that security operations are not compromised by a unusually busy travel schedule.

“They understand,” Alles said. “They accommodate to the degree they can and to the degree that it can be controlled. They have been supportive the whole time.”

Over time, Alles expects the Secret Service’s continued hiring campaign will gradually relieve the pressure. From its current force of 6,800 agents and uniform officers, the goal is to reach 7,600 by 2019 and 9,500 by 2025.

“We’re making progress,” he said.

For now, Alles is focused simply on ensuring that his current agents will be paid for the work they have already done.

“We have them working all night long; we’re sending them on the road all of the time,” Alles said. “There are no quick fixes, but over the long term, I’ve got to give them a better balance (of work and private life) here.”

[CNBC]

Trump’s Private Security’s Use of Force Questioned

Trump security punch protester

Donald Trump’s private security lacked basic procedures and policies — including for the use of force — giving guards free rein during the campaign and transition to physically confront protesters and journalists they found objectionable, according to hours of deposition transcripts in a civil lawsuit that were reviewed by POLITICO.

For instance, during a September 2015 protest outside Trump Tower, Trump security guard Gary Uher forcibly escorted a protester away from the building’s entrance because he believed — incorrectly — that the adjacent sidewalk was Trump’s property, according to his testimony. Uher said he was authorized by the campaign to use force to move the protesters, but in a separate deposition, Trump’s security director at the time, Keith Schiller, said Uher had no such authorization.

Yet Schiller, who joined Trump’s White House staff last month, explained that he decided to place his hands on Univision’s Jorge Ramos while ejecting him from an August 2015 press conference because Ramos was “not listening or not being cordial or respectful to Mr. Trump or his colleagues, because he spoke out of term (sic).”

And Trump Organization executive Matthew Calamari, to whom Trump testified in an affidavit he had delegated “full responsibility and authority for the hiring and supervision of all security personnel,” said the last time Trump’s operation produced a “security procedures” document was during the 1990s, and that it’s long been out of use. “I haven’t seen it in many, many years,” testified Calamari in his deposition. While he claimed that all of Trump’s security personnel are licensed as security guards by New York state, Uher, Schiller and another security official said in their depositions that they did not have such licenses when they responded to the September 2015 protest.

The sworn testimony was ordered in connection with a lawsuit brought in New York State court against the guards, the Trump Organization, the Trump campaign and Trump himself by participants in the September 2015 Trump Tower protest. The protesters claim they were “violently attacked” by Trump’s security “for the express purpose of interfering with their political speech.”

Schiller, Uher and the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. In their depositions, the security officers claim that they were just trying to keep the sidewalk clear for pedestrians and got physical only when protesters refused to clear the sidewalk and one accosted Schiller.

Yet the depositions paint a picture of a security operation guided more by instinct than procedures, where employees were not subject to background checks or regular evaluations, and where lines were blurred between Trump’s campaign, his corporation and even the United States Secret Service.

All of the officials deposed in the lawsuit continued working for Trump in some capacity after his Election Day victory, and at least two remained involved in some facet of Trump’s operations after he was sworn in as president last month.

Schiller, a retired New York City detective, began work last month as Trump’s director of Oval Office operations while Calamari continued as the Trump Organization’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, a position from which he oversees the company’s security apparatus. Uher suggested in his deposition that he too had gone to work for the company after the election.

Hope Hicks, the White House director of strategic communications, stressed that Schiller’s new White House job “does not entail any security-related functions” and that he “is in compliance with all rules applied to White House staff.” She referred questions about security personnel and functions to the Trump Organization and the Secret Service.

The Trump Organization did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

A Secret Service spokesperson stressed that the agency has sole authority to protect the president and his family but explained that it would coordinate with Schiller and other members of the president’s staff as well as “any private security organization responsible for the protection of facilities where a USSS protectee will be present.”

The depositions and the underlying lawsuit — one of at least three winding through federal and state courts brought by protesters against Trump, his campaign or its security — are likely to fuel scrutiny of Trump’s private security. It has drawn repeated complaints for excessive force and aggression, racial profiling and trampling free speech. And its relationship with the Secret Service has raised concerns among agency employees, outside law enforcement experts and members of Congress overseeing the agency, who worry that the private security may have complicated the service’s ability to protect Trump during the campaign and transition.

“I’m surprised that apparently these people have been around the Secret Service all along,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) during an interview on Washington’s NewsChannel 8 in December. “Who’s in charge if you have your long-term guards and the Secret Service?” she asked in response to a POLITICO article revealing that Trump had retained private security even after winning the presidency.

Norton, who sits on the House subcommittee that oversees the Secret Service, did not respond to a request for comment from POLITICO. But she told NewsChannel 8 that she intended to push the committee to investigate “how were they used during the campaign? Who was in charge then, because I understand that they had a role in the campaign that I did not know of, and I don’t believe the Congress knew of.”

POLITICO, in conjunction with the nonpartisan transparency organization the James Madison Project, on Monday sued the Secret Service under the Freedom of Information Act for public records detailing the agency’s relationship with Trump’s private security.

While the Secret Service assumed responsibility for Trump’s personal security in November 2015, some members of Trump’s private security detail continued traveling with him, while others continued providing security at rallies in conjunction with the service — highly unusual moves for a presidential campaign.

Schiller, in particular, appeared to continue acting as if he had a security function throughout the campaign. That raised concerns among Secret Service agents, who said Schiller bristled at their efforts to take charge and got in their way at times, according to a law enforcement official who communicates regularly with the agency’s agents.

The agency’s director, Joseph Clancy, suggested in a CNN interview last month that Trump’s private security stepped back when Secret Service assumed protection in November 2015. The private security wouldn’t have intervened if there were a threat to Trump, asserted Clancy, casting Schiller as a “conduit for information” between Trump and his agents.

Clancy told CNN that there was “no friction at all” between his agents and Trump’s private security. He declared that his agents “only work with the law enforcement partners” and “don’t interact with” Trump’s private security.

But some of Clancy’s own agents took umbrage at Clancy’s pushback, which they interpreted as an effort to minimize serious concerns about Trump’s private security in an effort to make nice with the new boss, according to the law enforcement official. Clancy’s comments on CNN “were in line with his efforts to try to keep issues out of the media and move on from an issue rather than address the matter,” said the law enforcement official.

In fact, Clancy’s assessment appears to be at odds with the depositions, as well as legal filings in other cases and POLITICO’s own reporting.

Eddie Deck, a former Marine and FBI agent, testified in the Trump Tower protest case that, after the Secret Service granted protection to Trump, Deck’s job changed from providing such protection to doing security at Trump events, including being a “liaison with the police and the Secret Service.”

In his deposition, Deck explained that his contract calls for him “to do the coordination with the police department or Secret Service for the safety and security at the Trump rallies.”

And Deck, whose policing of Trump rallies drew repeated complaints from protesters for using excessive force and ejecting people solely because they didn’t look like Trump supporters, suggested that he and the Secret Service were involved in a decision to cancel a March 2016 rally in Chicago amid raucous protests — both outside and inside the arena.

“It created such an unsafe environment, that Mr. Trump did not come due to my advisement and Secret Service’s advisement, because it would’ve been very, very, very unsafe,” said Deck.

Deck did not respond to a request for comment, while a Secret Service spokesperson said Deck was not involved in the agency’s security planning or decision-making. “During the campaign, Mr. Deck was considered a staff member,” the spokesperson said, adding “staff members serve different functions of which being a liaison with USSS or local police might be one.”

And although Clancy told CNN that the Secret Service wouldn’t get involved in ejecting protesters who weren’t a threat to Trump because “We want to make sure everyone has their First Amendment rights,” Trump’s own lawyers suggested he saw things otherwise.

In a filing in a case brought by three protesters roughed up and ejected by Trump supporters from a March 2016 rally in Louisville, Kentucky, after Trump barked “get ’em out!,” Trump’s lawyers wrote that “Mr. Trump was calling on the Secret Service, event security, and local law enforcement to enforce the law and remove hecklers who were ruining the event for others.”

The Secret Service spokesperson said that the agency “will not impede the First Amendment right of protesters and will only engage if a verbal or active threat is directed toward a protectee.” Decisions about whether to remove disruptive protesters are made “at the discretion of the host committee,” the spokesperson said, adding that agents “would not be involved in the removal of those individuals.”

The fact that the Kentucky rally was held in a private venue using Trump campaign funds meant that once the protesters voiced anti-Trump sentiments, they became trespassers, according to the filing by Trump’s lawyers. And that “gave Mr. Trump and the Campaign the legal right to remove the protesters by force,” Trump’s lawyers argued. Nonetheless, video shows the lead plaintiff, a young African-American woman named Kashiya Nwanguma, was mostly forced from the arena by Trump supporters who shoved and taunted her as she made her way toward the exit.

Nwanguma alleges in the suit that she was subject to racial epithets and other slurs during the ordeal. And her lawyer Daniel J. Canon argued in an interview that what happened to Nwanguma represented a failure of Trump’s private security and local police.

“Part of the problem here is that they weren’t removed by private security,” said Canon. “Instead, they just let this angry mob of white people attack this black person who was protesting,” said Canon, who brought the suit against Trump, his campaign and three attendees, one of whom is a well-known white nationalist.

“The idea that a presidential candidate goes on the road and makes campaign stops and asks or commands the crowd to turn on peaceful protesters who are in the audience is beyond the pale, especially when you know that you’ve got a powder keg on the ground of white supremacists and other violent people and groups,” he said.

The protesters who clashed with Trump’s security outside Trump Tower in September 2015 also contend that the security is a reflection of Trump himself.

The protest was motivated by Trump’s incendiary claims about Mexicans, and it included a pair of protesters dressed in paper facsimiles of Ku Klux Klan robes and hoods, while others carried signs declaring Trump a racist.

After mistakenly informing the protesters that the Trump Tower sidewalk was private property, Uher escorted one of the protesters in a KKK costume away from the building, inside of which Trump was holding a press conference to announce that he’d signed a loyalty pledge to support the Republican Party’s presidential nominee — even if it wasn’t him.

Uher argued in his deposition that the situation required him to put his hands on the protester. “Yeah, I’m sure I touched him… just to advise him that we had to keep moving,” said Uher, explaining “my hands weren’t on him the whole time. As I invaded his space, he was — he moved.”

Schiller demanded that protesters remove an 8-foot-long sign mimicking Trump’s campaign logo, but instead reading “Make America Racist Again.” When they didn’t comply, he aggressively grabbed and ripped the sign, turned and began walking with it toward Trump Tower.

One of the protesters, Efrain Galicia, pursued Schiller, grabbing him from behind in “an attempt to retrieve the [sign] before Schiller could abscond with it into Trump Tower,” according to a legal complaint filed by lawyers for Galicia and others who protested with him. Video shows Schiller quickly pivoting and striking Galicia in the head. Schiller explained in an affidavit that he did so “instinctively” and “based on … years of training” because he felt Galicia’s “hand on my firearm, which was strapped on the right side of my rib cage in a body holster.”

Though Schiller admitted in his deposition that his gun was concealed beneath a loose-fitting suit jacket, he contended that Galicia “could have seen the bulge” from the weapon through his jacket.

Deck quickly grabbed Galicia around the neck, holding him back, because, Deck argued in his deposition, Galicia “had already jumped and assaulted Mr. Schiller,” though Deck also conceded it was unclear whether Galicia knew Schiller was armed.

Deck, Schiller and Uher all explained in their depositions that they were trying to clear the sidewalk because the protesters were impeding foot traffic, though the protesters’ lawyers argue there was ample room for passersby to walk past.

“It was mayhem out there,” Deck said.

But Galicia suggested to reporters at the scene that Trump’s private security personnel were targeting protesters and “just acting like their boss.”

While the judge hearing the case ruled that Galicia’s lawyers could not depose Trump before the case went to trial, one of the lawyers, Roger Bernstein, suggested that the tactics of Trump’s security nonetheless reflected on Trump and his operation.

“Given Donald Trump’s policies and practices, we expect to prove that Donald Trump and his companies explicitly or implicitly authorized the assaults by their unlicensed security personnel,” Bernstein said.

Schiller, Deck and Uher all said in their depositions that they were led to believe that the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization would pay their legal fees if they lost the case, and all three are represented by lawyers for the Trump Organization. The three expressed some uncertainty at times during the depositions about whether they were working for the Trump Organization or the Trump campaign.

According to Federal Election Commission filings, the campaign through the end of November had spent more than $1 million on private security, including $181,000 paid to Schiller, and $50,000 to a company called KS Global Group LLC. While the company, which was registered in Delaware in October 2015 without revealing the names of its principals, bears Schiller’s initials, neither he nor Trump’s representatives would comment on who is behind it. The biggest recipient of Trump security cash is a company called XMark LLC, which is owned by Deck and which lists Uher as vice president.

Deck, Uher and Schiller continued providing security after the election for rallies funded by Trump’s campaign as part of his post-election “Thank You Tour,” during which protesters were removed — sometimes roughly — at many stops. The funding and security for those rallies will be covered by campaign finance reports that were due to be filed with the FEC before midnight Tuesday.

When Bernstein during the depositions asked why XMark’s logo included St. George’s Cross, which is often associated with military causes, Deck appears to have become angry. Explaining the cross was “to honor the fallen dead of the soldiers and the military people that I worked with for three years in Joint Special Operations Command,” Deck accused the lawyer of “desecrating the memory of those heroes that I’ve worked with” and said “they gave their lives so you can question me about that.”

(h/t Politico)

Trump’s Companies Made $1.6 Million Off the Secret Service

Donald Trump is making millions off his own Secret Service detail, and your tax dollars.

The Service is tasked with protecting high-ranking government officials and presidential candidates (among other duties) like Trump. Since this protection is mandatory, it’s common practice for the Service to reimburse campaigns for travel expenses. But it looks like the $1.6 million the Service recently paid the Trump campaign went right back to Trump’s business interests, according to Politico.

The business mogul and his security detail regularly fly on the Trump-owned jet service, TAG Air. The firm also manages Trump’s fleet of private planes. So the money the Service pays back goes right back to his business. Politico reviewed Federal Election Commission filings and found that TAG has already made $6 million off Trump’s campaign.

For comparison, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton charters planes from a private company called Executive Fliteways, one where the Clintons do not have any ownership interest, Politico reported.

It’s not the only way that Trump has been profiting from his White House run.

Last week, he finally admitted President Obama was born in the United States at his hotel in Washington, D.C., earning free media coverage for what CNN’s Jake Tapper later called a “political rick roll.” Trump’s campaign has spent major sums on rent at his hotels and buying copies of his own books, too. He’s even previously stated that he may wind up actually making money from his presidential bid.

(h/t Fortune)

Reality

Donald Trump’s critics have questioned whether the Republican nominee, who points to his business acumen as a case for his candidacy, is trying to do what he has suggested he would in 2000 when he mulled making an independent run: “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.”