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The Secret Service Wanted A $60M Budget Increase To Protect The Trumps

But it's not clear how the budget compares to previous presidents' needs.
Posted at 8:53 AM, Mar 23, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-23 08:53:01-04

President Donald Trump and his family are costing the Secret Service a pretty penny.

According to documents obtained by The Washington Post, the agency requested an extra $60 million for its 2018 budget to protect the Trump family and pay for travel.

The outlet says almost half of that money would have gone toward keeping the first family and their private home at Trump Tower safe.

And the other half would have been used to cover the travel costs of "the president, vice president and other visiting heads of state."

As the Post notes, cost breakdowns of the Secret Service's budget are confidential. So it's unclear exactly how this new budget request compares to the needs of past presidents.

But the Secret Service likely won't be getting that extra money, at least for now. A source told the Post the White House's Office of Management and Budget denied the budget increase request. 

And that could potentially force the agency to scale back on other operations, like investigations into cyberhacking.

The Washington Post's report comes as critics continue to question Trump's trips to his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The president has visited the resort five times since his inauguration.