Don Jr. cost taxpayers at least $75,000 with hunting trip to Mongolia

Donald Trump Jr. cost taxpayers more than $75,000 to take a father-and-son trip to Mongolia last August to kill an endangered argali sheep, according to documents given to a government watchdog.

The group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington came out with a new report Monday that said the total cost of Trump Jr.’s trip was $76,859.36. 

CREW had originally asked for a cost estimate from the Secret Service and was told in March the trip cost taxpayers at least $17,000. Now, CREW pointed out, the dollar amount is $60,000 higher.  

During the August 2019 trip to Mongolia, Donald Trump Jr. hunted an endangered argali sheep

The original documents showed that Secret Service paid $15,999.84 for the Marmara International LLC camping service. Another $ 1,705.12 was billed to cover additional resources needed by Trump Jr.’s protective duty. 

Those documents, however, didn’t include Trump Jr.’s stop in Ulaanbaatar, where he met privately with Mongolian president Khaltmaagiin Battulga – a meeting first reported by ProPublica – and the cost of additional air travel for Secret Service. 

The revised Freedom of Information Act query shows $12,025 being spent by the Secret Service at the Shangri-la Hotel in Ulaanbaatar.  Additionally, $1,927.62 was spent on expenses like phones and cars. 

The Secret Service’s FOIA department also included a revised air costs estimate, which included the whole month of August. That’s where the rest of the tab reported by CREW comes from. 

Donald Trump Jr. and his son Donald Trump III flew commercial in and out of the country, a spokesperson told DailyMail.com – so the costs are only associated with Secret Service agents. 

The trip has been controversial since ProPublica reported in December that Trump Jr. was able to obtain a rare permit to slay an argali sheep after the sheep was already dead.      

He was granted the permit on September 2 – one of only three to be issued for the area – after he and son, Donald Trump III, had left the region where the sheep had been hunted. 

‘It’s unusual for permits to be issued after a hunter’s stay,’ the ProPublica story said.    

The first son met with President Battulga in Ulaanbaatar before traveling back to the United States.    

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in December there was ‘no basis’ to investigate the first son’s hunting trip, according to The Hill newspaper. 

A spokesman for Trump Jr. told ProPublica in December that the trip was personal travel. 

Trump Jr. had purchased the seven-day Mongolian hunting trip at a National Rifle Association auction before his father had been elected president, the spokesperson said.   

Government officials from both Mongolia and the U.S. accompanied the hunting party on the trip. 

A Mongolian government source told ProPublica that the embassy’s defense attache accompanied Trump Jr., and described ‘five American bodyguards’ as being part of the group.   

Pictures on social media that Trump Jr. posted show him with son ‘D3’ with Mongolian horses and in a Mongolian yurt.   

‘Great adventure with my man Donnie aka D3 last week exploring western Mongolia,’ Trump Jr. wrote as one of the captions. ‘Despite some cold rain and even snow (and often times T-shirt weather in the same day), 12,000 feet altitude, long days with hard miles hiking and on horseback he doesn’t make a peep but goes hard and loves it. You’re the man buddy,’ he said of his son.   

In September 2017, Trump Jr. had tried to give up his Secret Service detail, but subsequent threats to the first son made him a continued protectee by agents.