Cities across the country say the president’s campaign has failed to reimburse them for law enforcement costs.
Donald Trump has raised record amounts of money as a presidential candidate. But he’s still left a slew of unpaid bills in his wake.
In city after city, across the nation, Trump has failed to pay local officials who provide thousands of dollars’ worth of security assistance to the president’s campaign during his Make America Great Again rallies.
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In total, at least 10 cities have complained that the campaign has not reimbursed them for services provided by local police and fire departments, totaling more than $840,000, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity in June.
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Minneapolis may find itself next on the list after the president picked a fight with the city’s mayor on Tuesday.
Trump accused Mayor Jacob Frey of overcharging the arena in downtown Minneapolis for services during Trump’s rally, scheduled for Thursday night, alleging that the mayor doesn’t want the president to speak in the overwhelmingly Democratic city.
“The radical Mayor of Minneapolis, @Jacob_Frey, is abusing his power in an attempt to block the President’s supporters from seeing him speak on Thursday,” Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted. “We refuse to be bullied by a left-winger resister & won’t let him stifle the speech of @realDonaldTrump or his supporters!”
The feud comes days after the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee announced a record-breaking fundraising haul —$125 million in the three-month period ending Sept. 30.
The campaign and the RNC have raised more than $308 million in 2019 alone and have $156 million in the bank. They aim to raise a whopping $1 billion for the re-election. “President Trump has built a juggernaut of a campaign, raising record amounts of money at a record pace,” Parscale boasted in a statement.
It isn’t the first time Trump, a businessman with a global real estate empire, has faced accusations that he didn’t pay his bills. The complaints from local governments echo decades of accusations by private contractors who claim that Trump didn’t adequately compensate them for their work before he was sworn into office.
At least 60 lawsuits and more than 200 liens detailed allegations that Trump and his companies failed to pay various businesses and scores of employees for their work, according to an investigation by USA Today in 2016. Those who claimed they were stiffed by the future president included bartenders, painters, real estate brokers and others.
The Trump campaign declined to answer questions about specific cities.
“It is the U.S. Secret Service, not the campaign, which coordinates with local law enforcement,” Michael Glassner, the campaign’s chief operating officer, wrote in a statement. “The campaign itself does not contract with local governments for police involvement. All billing inquiries should always go to the Secret Service.”
But a Secret Service spokesman said the Secret Service does not pay for law enforcement overtime associated with protective visits. “The Secret Service is not funded to pay police overtime and we don’t have a mechanism to do so,” the spokesman said.
Trump often praises law enforcement. “We love you and will always support you,” he tweeted in January on National Law Enforcement Appreciation Day. But it’s law enforcement agencies that often bill campaigns for helping with crowds, security and closing streets when a candidate comes to town, though some absorb the cost themselves.
Local officials in at least three cities — El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and Lebanon, Ohio — have said in recent days that bills remain unpaid.
El Paso billed Trump’s campaign $570,000 for his visit in February, including a one-time late fee of $98,800.
Lebanon is owed $16,200, mostly to defray the cost of the city’s police department, for an October 2018 event.
Tucson officials billed Trump’s campaign more than $80,000 for Trump’s visit in 2016 where 180 police officers provided security.
Of the 10 cities listed in the Center for Public Integrity study, five — Tucson; Green Bay and Eau Claire, Wis.; Burlington, Vt.; and Spokane, Wash. — date back to 2016 when Trump was running for office.
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