It Sure Seems Like the Trump Campaign Is Trying to Stick El Paso With a $500K Bill for Its Rally

By Rafi Schwartz  |  June 3, 2019 | 8:12pm
White House

President Donald Trump’s long history of screwing contractors and employees out of money seems to be continuing, with a new report claiming his campaign is more than a month late paying back the city of El Paso nearly a half a million dollars in costs associated with a rally held there nearly five months ago.

As ABC News reported on Monday, the Trump campaign owes El Paso $470,417.05 for a variety of costs stemming from his Feb. 11 rally, among them police and fire protection and street maintenance. The city issued its official request for reimbursement from the Trump campaign in late March with an April 26 due date.

The city even followed up with the campaign in late May, explaining that failure to pay could result in an additional 21 percent “one-time collection fee” bringing the grand total owed to more than half a million bucks, according to the network. Nevertheless, so far, no money.

“As with any invoices we issue out, our expectation is to be paid for the services rendered,” El Paso Chief Financial Officer Robert Cortinas told ABC News. “The City is fiscally responsible.”

The Trump team, meanwhile, seems ready to fight the invoice, with campaign COO Michael Glassner telling ABC the money requested “is roughly 10 times the amount that a locality generally asks to be reimbursed.”

If the campaign refuses to pay, the city itself will be forced to eat the expenses, which would come from—and represents more than 60 percent of—El Paso’s contingency budget, which is used primarily for civic emergencies like severe weather, ABC reported.

Trump’s El Paso MAGA rally was noteworthy largely for the fact that an apparently drunken attendee was filmed randomly assaulting BBC cameraman Ron Skeans in the middle of the president’s speech. It also occurred on the same evening that Beto O’Rourke held his own counter-rally just down the street from the president’s event. As ABC notes, O’Rourke’s team has reimbursed the city in full.

 
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