New shocking details have emerged surrounding the specifics of how much President Obama
set-back American taxpayers for his recreational trips.
According to Judicial Watch, the Obama Family's total travel expenses while in office were
just over $114 million, which include family vacations, recreational trips, talk show appearances,
and other expenditures.
The conservative watchdog group recently announced that it obtained records from the US Air Force
and the Secret Service relating to their recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request
for the travel expenses of former President Barack Obama as well as President Donald Trump.
First filed in May 2017, the FOIA lawsuit ended up producing records that showed the
Obama Family's travel expenses cost American taxpayers $114 million in total.
Among those costs included one family trip where Michelle Obama and her daughters shut
down an airport for an hour for their annual vacation to Aspen, where they spent over $88,000
for a weekend trip.
In another instance, President Obama's annual golfing trip to Palm Springs cost over $183,000
for a weekend as well.
However, these expenses are still a far cry from some of their most expensive trips.
The Obama Family's Christmas vacations alone have cost taxpayers close to $35 million,
according to The Washington Times.
The Secret Service also revealed that Mr. Obama spent considerable amounts in post-presidency
travels as well, which were reimbursed by American taxpayers.
Billing close to $2 million in total travel costs, with $936,000 on hotels and another
$814,000 on "miscellaneous expenses," these hefty reimbursements were made while
not knowing anything about the destinations of these trips, which were withheld under
"privacy" and "law enforcement" exemptions.
This updated figure of $114 million is an increase from previous reports earlier in
this year, which calculated President Obama's travel expenditures to be closer to $100 million.
In 2016, the figure was thought to be even lower, estimated at $85 million.
Judicial Watch focused on trips that they deemed to be non-essential, such as golfing,
vacations, fundraisers, campaign stops, and talk show appearances.
Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch's president, said he was frustrated that it required several
federal lawsuits to get the government to release this information, especially since
he felt the public deserved to know where their tax-funded dollars were going to.
"It shouldn't require federal lawsuits to prod the Secret Service and Air Force to
produce information about the costs of presidential travel – whether the travel is necessary
or not, it's a massive amount of money," said Mr. Fitton.
"We will continue to monitor this spending while taxpayers continue to pay the bills
for presidential travel."
He also mentioned that it is troubling to see such massive amounts of money being paid
on trips that "appear to have minimal value to the public interest," while at the same
time hoping that President Trump "can immediately save taxpayers money by reforming presidential
travel."
At the moment, President Trump's total travel costs are calculated at just over $10 million
in his first year, lower than the average $14 million spent on travel expenses during
Barack Obama's tenure.
Most Americans would agree that these costs are wasteful expenses that could be better
spent elsewhere.
As the nation deals with a $20 trillion dollar national debt, these kinds of expenditures
need to be curtailed.
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