The Secret Service has been kicked to the curb — literally — by the very people it’s supposed to be protecting.
A lease dispute between the government and President Donald Trump’s company has forced the agency to vacate its Trump Tower command post, where it had been set up just one floor below the Trump’s apartment, and relocate to trailer situated on the sidewalk more than 50 stories below, the Washington Post reported.
Trump hasn’t spent a single night at Trump Tower since his inauguration, though First Lady Melania Trump and the couple’s 11-year-old son, Barron, lived in the home until June.
Since moving to the White House, the Trump family has rarely visited the New York City tower, but security experts said the distance between Secret Service agents and the first family’s apartment could seriously impede the agency’s protective efforts, the Post reported.
An agency official disputed that assumption, telling The Hill “there has been no impact on the security plan” as a result of moving the command post.
The situation appears unlikely to change, however, as a Trump Organization spokeswoman on Thursday said the government should look for another location.
“After much consideration, it was mutually determined that it would be more cost effective and logistically practical for the Secret Service to lease space elsewhere,” spokeswoman Amanda Miller wrote in an email to The Washington Post.
The details of the dispute aren’t entirely clear, though a Washington Post source claimed price was a major sticking point. No word on what that price was, but the U.S. military rents separate space in Trump Tower with a price tag of about $130,000 a month, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Secret Service has faced significant cost increases as it tries to protect a president who spends most of his weekends away at various residences scattered around the Eastern seaboard — the agency spent $35,000 just on golf cart rentals in the first three months of Trump’s presidency, according to CBS.
Earlier this year, Congress OK’d a $120 million budget for protecting the president and the first family, with more than half of the cash going directly to the Secret Service.
