The response to one Democrat's proposed legislation to find out who President Donald Trump is rubbing elbows with at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago is simple — the resort can't turn over that which it doesn't have.
Trump's "Southern White House" doesn't keep visitor logs, Politico reported. And the Secret Service doesn't have the bandwidth — or the dollars — to do it either.
That strikes a blow to Sen. Tom Udall's proposed legislation — Making Access Records Available to Lead American Government Openness Act, or "Mar-a-Lago."
"If the Secret Service can't keep track of who has access to the president outside the White House then that's a national security concern," Udall told Politico.
However, Udall and three other prominent Democrats have gotten the attention of the General Accountability Office, asking the watchdog to look into security as well as costs incurred by Trump's numerous visits to the Palm Beach resort, The Washington Post reported.
The GAO has agreed to look into four areas:
- Security screening.
- Measures taken at Mar-a-Lago to protect classified information.
- What's being done to ensure costs are fair and reasonable.
- Whether Trump has paid the Treasury monies from profits from any of his properties, as he said he would do.
The overtaxed Secret Service has already requested an additional $60 million in funding to keep up with its security detail of Trump and the First Lady Melania, who remains in New York with their son Barron.
So security measures like background checks, weapons screening or bomb-sniffing dogs? Not at Mar-a-Lago.
"Every asset in the kitchen sink goes to the president and it steps down from there based on the threat profile," Jonathan Wackrow, a former Secret Service agent, told Politico.
That's blood in the water for Udall and Democrats.
"And if it's prohibitively expensive to keep track of who has access to the president when he's conducting official business, then the president should consider the taxpayers and take seriously his own promises to save the taxpayers money," Udall told Politico.
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