Report: Donald Trump, Grifter Incarnate, Charges Taxpayers for Water He Drinks at Mar-a-Lago

Still, in other ways, being the most powerful person in America has been absolutely tremendous for Trump’s family business, which he refused to divest from after being inaugurated and still profits from to this day. For one, Republican politicians, foreign officials, corporate executives, and anyone looking to grease the wheels of the federal government know their money will go far at the Trump International Hotel Washington, D.C. “Why wouldn’t I stay at his hotel blocks from the White House, so I can tell the new president, ‘I love your new hotel!’ Isn’t it rude to come to his city and say, ‘I am staying at your competitor?’” a diplomat told the Washington Post in 2016. For another, he’s able to use trips abroad to peddle his money-losing golf clubs, where he can also “suggest” the vice president spend the night despite non-Trump properties making more sense. And then, of course, there are the trips to Mar-a-Lago and his club in Bedminster, New Jersey.

We’ve known for some time that these frequent jaunts to his own properties—280 of them to date—either to meet with heads of state or to simply get away for the weekend, cost taxpayers millions of dollars. But in a new report out today, the Washington Post puts an actual price tag on the amount of money Trump has funneled from the U.S. Treasury, as well as his campaign, directly into his own pocket: at least $8.1 million, which is reportedly more than his hotels in Hawaii and Vancouver have taken in since 2017. It also reveals what an out and out con the president is, bilking taxpayers for not just large items like hotel rooms— which, of course, they wouldn’t have to pay for if he was at the White House or a private residence—but the kind that flows out of a tap:

In the case of the government, Trump’s visits turned it into a captive customer, newly revealed documents show. What the government needed from Trump’s properties, it had to buy from Trump’s company. So the more he went, the more he got. Since 2017, Trump’s company has charged taxpayers for hotel rooms, ballrooms, cottages, rental houses, golf carts, votive candles, floating candles, candelabras, furniture moving, resort fees, decorative palm trees, strip steak, chocolate cake, breakfast buffets, $88 bottles of wine and $1,000 worth of liquor for White House aides. And water.