How Taxpayers Covered a $1,000 Liquor Bill for Trump Staffers (and More) at Trump's Club

[riversedge]

I have not heard a peep about this on the news.





How Taxpayers Covered a $1,000 Liquor Bill for Trump Staffers (and More) at Trump’s Club

https://www.propublica.org/article/trump-inc-podcast-taxpayers-covered-liquor-bill-for-trump-staffers-and-more-mar-a-lago?utm_content=buffer82de6&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=buffer

A top-shelf, closed-door drinking session. $546-a-night hotel rooms. A special government credit card for Mar-a-Lago. Taxpayers foot the costs — and the president profits.

by Derek Kravitz for ProPublica May 1, 4 a.m. EDT


Find “Trump, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts. This week’s episode examines the intersection of money, presidential access and security, and the push and pull between government spending and private profits at Mar-a-Lago.

In April 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, for a two-day summit. While Xi and his delegation stayed at a nearby hotel, Trump and his advisers stayed at the peach-colored, waterfront resort.

That evening, Trump and a dozen of his closest advisers hosted Xi and the Chinese delegation in an ornate dining room where they ate Dover sole and New York strip steak. Those sorts of lavish, formal gatherings are expected for a major bilateral summit.

But then there are less formal events. At some point later that evening, a group repaired to Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar, a wood-paneled study with a portrait of Trump in tennis whites (titled “The Visionary”) hanging nearby. The group asked the bartender to leave the room so it “could speak confidentially,” according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson.

Mar-a-Lago's Catering Director Describes White House Happy Hour for State Department (p. 33)
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The Secret Service guarded the door, according to the email. The bartender wasn’t allowed to return. And members of the group began pouring themselves drinks. No one paid.

Six days later, on April 13, Mar-a-Lago created a bill for those drinks, tallying $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20% service charge. It covered 54 drinks (making for an average price of $18.62 each) of premium liquor: Chopin vodka, Patron and Don Julio Blanco tequilas and Woodford Reserve bourbon. Watson’s email did not specify how many people consumed the alcohol or who the participants were. (It stated that she was told the participants included then-strategist Steve Bannon and then-deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin. Bannon, who has said he stopped drinking years ago, said he didn’t drink at Mar-a-Lago and didn’t recall the episode. Hagin did not respond to requests for comment.)..................................................

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President Donald Trump, center, with Chinese President Xi Jinping at dinner, during Jinping’s visit to Mar-a-Lago in April 2017. (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images)

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[jmowreader]

1. So...I take it Trump uses Liquor Clickers at his bars?

The Liquor Clicker:

https://alcoholcontrols.com/liqtrolspouts.html

It's the only way you're going to get even slightly close if the Secret Service kicks the staff out of the lounge.

I have the sneakin' suspicion Colin didn't mark down ALL the drinks that bunch consumed. I went over their order at the Total Wine website. It's not likely Trump's liquor manager is buying booze at retail, but let's say she does. If you bought one 750ml bottle each of Woodford Reserve and Don Julio Blanco, and one 1.75l bottle each of the other two spirits, your entire order would only come to $260. And you'd have spirits left over in all four bottles. (Tax doesn't enter into it; when you buy for taxable resale you are tax-exempt when you buy the stuff, to avoid double-taxation of merchandise.) I figure Trump's little group and their guests got totally fucking stewed on the taxpayer's dime, and the bar staff spent a week trying to figure out the most they could bill the USG without incurring the wrath of their boss. But it's okay, they still turned a profit.

[riversedge]

2. "A top-shelf, closed-door drinking session." per the article. the good stuff--

[jmowreader]

3. I saw that.

But I still suspect they drank more than the bar had the courage to charge for.

[ROB-ROX]

4. All The Assholes Should PAY The Bill

There is NOTHING free. I traveled and was paid by a FEDERAL Department. The "travel allowance" for food and room is not more than $200 per day. The assholes should be given the bill because they TRIED to steal the booze. They failed to realize the booze was either video recorded or the bottles were weighed. The bill is correct and the TURDS should pay up and be FIRE for stealing from a business. Drinking on the job is a BIG no no for federal workers......I know the rules after 34 years DOE...."Q" security clearance.....