Hillary’s Campaign Convinced the Secret Service to Overpay for Chartered Flights

Hillary Clinton’s campaign convinced the U.S. Secret Service to pay extra for agents riding with candidates in chartered flights, and that caused the government pay $4 million to several campaign committees, according to a new report.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an attorney from the law firm representing the Hillary for America Committee emailed officials at the Secret Service in June 2015 to argue that the government should consistently pay a higher rate for flights on candidates planes.

The Secret Service provides protection to certain presidential candidates on the taxpayer’s dime, and pays each campaign committee for seats the agents occupy on the candidate’s chartered planes while on duty.

The Secret Service has two ways of calculating how much to pay the campaign: They either pay the campaign based on the lowest priced first-class seat available for the given route, or pay a “pro rata” rate calculated by dividing the cost of the chartered flight by the number of passengers. The agency is supposed to calculate both options and pay the campaign the lower price to save taxpayer money. . .

The Secret Service agreed with the unidentified law firm’s interpretation of the law, and as a result “the Secret Service ceased to adhere to its longstanding reimbursement policy and agency officials were directed to use the pro rata calculation method for reimbursing all campaigns for agent airfares,” the GAO said. (Read more from “Hillary’s Campaign Convinced the Secret Service to Overpay for Chartered Flights” HERE)

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