Trump redirects millions from Secret Service amid White House construction
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration has transferred about $350 million from the Secret Service to White House security upgrades as President Donald Trump builds a luxury ballroom on the grounds with a secure military bunker underneath.
Two transfers, of $340.8 million and $10.75 million, were made last week, according to the Office of Management and Budget. The Washington Post reported earlier on the transfer of funds.
Trump has tried to ward off criticism of his plans to build a ballroom by insisting that private donations -- not taxpayer money -- would be used to pay for it. But the reality is more complicated. The Secret Service has acknowledged that taxpayer money will be used for “security enhancements” of the ballroom and the bunker.
Rachel Cauley, the communications director for the White House Office of Management and Budget, said the funding was for security, not the construction of the ballroom itself. The White House has said that roughly $400 million in private donations would pay for the ballroom.
“It’s all private donations,” Cauley said in an email.
Trump first pitched the ballroom as a way to properly entertain guests in a grand manner. But in recent months, he has also started speaking about the project as a matter of national security and linking it to the bunker beneath the ballroom.
When Trump tore down the East Wing to make way for the ballroom, he also began a taxpayer-funded project to upgrade the bunker.
The bunker, which was built during World War II to protect the president and other top officials in the event of an emergency, was where Vice President Dick Cheney was hustled after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Trump was rushed there, too, during protests over the death of George Floyd in 2020.
The White House now refers to both the ballroom project and the bunker collectively as the “East Wing Modernization Project,” which Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said “is inextricably tied to the security of the president, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets.”
In court documents, the Secret Service has repeatedly argued that any halt in the collective project could put lives in danger.
“The events over the weekend and the foiled attack on the historic UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House proves exactly why the East Wing Modernization Project is severely needed for large-scale events,” Ingle said, referring to charges against a group of people accused of planning an attack on the UFC event at the White House on Sunday.
In addition to building the ballroom, the Trump administration is at work on a number of security upgrades at the White House and plans to use taxpayer money for those projects. The administration had asked Congress for $1 billion to cover the cost of security enhancements, though that request was later dropped from a funding bill.
The Secret Service has said it plans to spend $220 million to “harden” the partially built ballroom against attack, including the installation of bulletproof glass, drone detection technology, chemical and other threat filters and detectors. The taxpayer-funded upgrades also include a $180 million visitor screening facility.
“The Ballroom is coming along fantastically well,” Trump wrote on social media early Thursday. The president claimed the project was “on time, and under budget.” He said it would include a port for military drones and “ALL of the other many Military elements, which are all vital for National Security, that are being built throughout the whole integrated, cohesive Project.”
In related news, the paint on the newly renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Thursday was peeling away from the bottom and into the algae-tinted water, less than two weeks after Trump announced the job’s completion.
The historic pool was drained and refinished in a $14.7 million no-bid contract this year.
Trump announced on June 6 that work on the pool had finished. By Tuesday, workers had started pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool to combat an algae bloom that had turned it green, instead of the expected dark blue.
The National Park Service, which operates the National Mall, where the pool is located, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Atlantic Industrial Coatings, the Virginia-based company that carried out the renovations, also did not immediately respond.
Some visitors to the site said they were unimpressed.
“I want my money back after seeing this. I think our resources could be used a lot better elsewhere,” Robert Dale of Edwards, Colorado, told Reuters as he looked on. “I think this reflecting pool was beautiful before, before all this attention.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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