High maintenance: Hunter Biden vs all Trump children

FPI / March 16, 2020

The cost to U.S. taxpayers to protect Hunter Biden on his overseas trips was four times more than the Secret Service detail for all of President Donald Trump's children, combined, a report said.

Taxpayers paid $193,696 for Hunter Biden’s Secret Service entourage, the Washington Free Beacon reported on March 16.

In comparison, the Secret Service detail for all of Trump’s children combined is recorded to have cost about $40,000.

“While his father Joe Biden was vice president, Hunter Biden traveled with a Secret Service entourage to at least 10 different countries, including China, Qatar, and South Africa, according to a government expenditure database. He racked up 28 separate bills, all of which involved taxpayer payments to a ‘miscellaneous foreign contractor’ or ‘miscellaneous foreign awardee,' ” the Free Beacon report said.

“Many of the bills explicitly said that the money was used to pay for accommodations for the Secret Service, but others were scant on details.”

No other presidential family members that are disclosed in the government expenditure database even came close to the cost of Hunter Biden’s travel. The next highest was Malia Obama, whose travel expenses cost taxpayers $41,023.

“This is not the first time the Biden family has used the Secret Service for its personal benefit. While in the White House, Joe Biden charged rent for the Secret Service agents stationed in his Wilmington, Delaware property, costing taxpayers $171,600 between 2011 and 2017. Biden’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment,” the Free Beacon report added.

Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin have renewed congressional scrutiny of Hunter Biden. The senators have requested Hunter Biden's travel records from the Secret Service in order to unearth "potential conflicts of interest posed by the business activities of Hunter Biden and his associates."

In their letter to the Secret Service, Grassley and Johnson cited two examples of Hunter Biden's foreign entanglement, one each in Ukraine and China.

Hunter Biden was a board member of Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, while his father handled the Obama White House's Ukraine policy. He also served on the board of Chinese private equity company BHR Partners, organizing a meet-and-greet between Joe Biden and BHR CEO Jonathan Li on Dec. 4, 2013, according to the New Yorker.

Free Press International