Trump Jr.’s India trip cost taxpayers nearly $100K: report

Donald Trump Jr.’s business trip to India will cost U.S. taxpayers almost $100,000 in fees related to the Secret Service agents guarding him and other costs, The Washington Post reports.

Documents The Post obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that the trip cost over $97,805 for hotel rooms, airfare, car rental and overtime for Secret Service agents across the weeklong trip in February.

The Post did not specify if the cost was unusual when it comes to protecting members of presidential families abroad.

A person close to Trump Jr. said that the president’s eldest son did not want a security detail to accompany him to India, but was told he had to.

“Don would prefer not to have a detail but was told he’d have to have one,” the person told The Hill. “He always prefers to have as small a detail as possible with him, but he let’s [the Secret Service] decide.”

{mosads}The Secret Service is authorized by law to protect the president and his immediate family, though some on the left have balked at how much has been spent to protect members of the Trump family.

The Post reports that the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) released a report in July that shows the Secret Service spent $200,000 on airfare, hotel rooms and other expenses when Trump Jr. and Eric Trump went to the United Arab Emirates to open a golf resort last year.

Democrats began investigating the costs of Trump’s family travel last year, but are waiting for the results of two reports from the Government Accountability Office, the House oversight committee told the Post.

The managing director of public affairs for the GAO, Chuck Young, told the Post that the family travel study should be out in mid-December, but will only include travel in 2017.

The White House and Secret Service did not immediately return requests for comment on Thursday.

Updated: 2:49 p.m.