EXCLUSIVE: Secret Service spent $11 million on Hunter Biden travel detail
The Biden administration spent more than $10 million over three years on a security detail and related expenses for former First Son Hunter Biden after denying similar protections to other high-profile political figures, documents obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America and shared exclusively with The Center Square show.
The security detail for former President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, cost nearly $11 million, including on travel, real estate and expensive hotels, according to documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request CASA filed.
The documents from Jan. 1, 2022, to Dec. 31, 2024, indicate that the Biden administration spent nearly $9.3 million on hotels, $1.1 million on air and rail travel, and nearly $600,000 on car transportation and rentals for Hunter Biden’s Secret Service detail.
“Due to reports that Hunter Biden was playing a senior role in advising his father within the White House in 2024, CASA filed a FOIA request for information related to the taxpayer resources being spent to protect him,” CASA Director James Fitzpatrick told The Center Square in an exclusive interview. “What we found is that while the Secret Service denied protection to [then presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.], and failed to properly protect President [Donald] Trump resulting in two assassination attempts, Hunter Biden was enjoying a robust detail wherever he traveled, including trips to Nantucket, South Africa, and the Virgin Islands.”
Nearly all costs – 95% – were incurred in California, where Hunter Biden often resided, but also were incurred on expensive trips to the Virgin Islands, Nantucket, and Santa Ynez, California.
“If the Biden Secret Service was truly low on funding and staffing as they claimed in July 2024, the American people deserve answers as to why their priorities were so grossly misaligned,” Fitzpatrick said.
According to the documents, taxpayer-funded Secret Service expenses for Hunter Biden included multiple trips to Nantucket, an exclusive island off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
This included several hundred thousand dollars spent for a 2022 Thanksgiving trip to Nantucket, including $10,000 on golf cart rentals, $120,000 on lodging with $740 nightly hotel rates; $120,000 on travel cards, among other expenses.
A 2023 Thanksgiving trip to Nantucket cost more than half a million dollars, including $26,000 on ferries, $10,000 on golf cart rentals, $36,000 on Salt House Nantucket lodging, $133,500 on White Elephant Hotel lodging, $198,000 on Faraway Nantucket lodging, $161k on The Beachside Hotel lodging, $60,000 on Nantucket Inn lodging, among others.
Hunter Biden reportedly stayed at the estate of Democrat Party donor Joe Kiani when visiting Nantucket. “Biden and his family have made a habit of vacationing at the homes of donors to the Democratic Party. The president and his family spent Thanksgiving together three years in a row at the Nantucket compound of private equity billionaire David Rubenstein, and rang in the New Year in 2023 at the U.S. Virgin Islands home of Democratic donors Bill and Connie Neville,” The Los Angeles Times reported.
Other trips carried hefty price tags: a New Year’s trip to St. Croix cost $372,000 for real estate property and $372,000 for travel cards, according to the documents.
Multiple trip costs were for Hunter Biden and Melissa Cohen, Hunter’s wife. They include:
$18,000 for a two-day trip to Santa Barbara;$10,000 for one night in Arlington, Virginia;more than $170,000 for a two-day trip to Wilmington, Delaware;more than $250,000 on 13 hotels for a Biden family and Cohen day trip to New York City;nearly $650,000 for a trip to Santa Ynex, Calif, for six hotels.
During the Biden administration, CASA recognized “a significant departure from the typical norms surrounding Secret Service protection coverage,” Fitzpatrick told The Center Square, which prompted his FOIA request. CASA, a nonpartisan organization, is dedicated to improving the safety and security of Americans.
Many also raised concerns about Biden administration policies. During the 2024 election season, the Biden administration denied former Democratic presidential candidate Kennedy secret service protection when he was running for president even though both his father and uncle were assassinated. Since then, extensive failures have been uncovered by congressional investigations regarding Secret Service protections, or lack thereof, for Trump, including during two assassination attempts made on his life.
A recent inspector general report highlights even more extensive failures. These include chronic understaffing of Secret Service counter snipers; agents working the equivalent of an additional 24 full-time employees’ workload each year in overtime; and agents missing mandatory weapons requalification testing.
CASA filed the FOIA request in June under the Trump administration and requested records within specific timeframes for resources, expenditures and other information related to travel and security detail for Hunter Biden.
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