‘Outrageous’: The final price tag for Trump’s White House construction is close to $1 billion — and taxpayers are footing much of the bill

The Post discovered the costs of the construction after seeing official records and documents.

Of course, knocking down an entire wing of the White House to build a ballroom is bound to get pricey. But the bigger issue, the Post found, is that around $500 million of that bill is being paid out of the taxpayer purse without Congressional authorization, while another $375 million came mostly from private donors.

The taxpayer funds were reportedly diverted from their original allocations with the White House Military Office and the Secret Service to a private White House account reserved for general maintenance on the grounds.

“This is particularly outrageous because Donald Trump did lobby members of Congress to generously fund the ballroom and they declined to include it in their second reconciliation bill,” Cerin Lindgrensavage, the counsel for non-profit advocacy group Protect Democracy, told Moneywise. She added that Trump ignoring Congress and “raiding other funding sources” for his ballroom makes this “a far more worrisome separation of powers issue.”

Who’s actually paying for Trump’s ballroom?

Trump has long claimed that no public money would be spent on the ballroom project.

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle doubled down, telling Moneywise that “President Trump and generous American patriots are funding the ballroom to the tune of approximately $400 million, which will be a secure and appropriate venue for presidents for generations to come.”

He added that the East Wing Modernization Project is “inextricably tied to the security of the President, the White House grounds and the certain security infrastructure assets” and was done in “coordination with the White House Military Office and the United States Secret Service regarding design features and planning.” The Secret Service directed Moneywise’s request for comment to the White House.

Prior to this most recent spending report, however, the Post cited contractor estimates that put the ballroom price tag at $600 million, with taxpayers on the hook for half. It was also reported that some Trump project donors received $50 billion in federal contracts.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, wrote a letter to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Aug. 12 requesting an “an audit and assessment of the White House ballroom project and related documentation” while declaring “the opaque and unorthodox combination of public funds with private funding sources, and the absence of standard federal review processes raise serious concerns about transparency, accountability, and stewardship of this national landmark.”

The GAO confirmed to Moneywise that they “received a congressional request” and are working through their standard process to determine next steps.

In the meantime, the ballroom battle could be headed to the Supreme Court after a federal appeals court upheld a lower court ruling last week halting construction. The majority wrote, “We are aware of no instance in American history in which a President unilaterally and using privately collected funds demolished substantial portions of the White House that Congress authorized to be built and American taxpayers paid for. Until now.”

Show me the money

Previous major White House renovations include President Harry Truman’s $5.7-million “steel and concrete” modernization of the aging interior, President Nixon nixing the indoor pool for $574,000, and President Obama’s $376 million reno, which was approved by Congress under his predecessor, President George W. Bush.

The new revelations about alleged Trump administration spending of taxpayer funds, meanwhile, shine a spotlight squarely on Congressional oversight and how Americans can keep track of where taxpayer money is spent.

Lindgrensavage, who also heads Protect Democracy’s spending abuses team, pointed to OpenOMB.org, a searchable database of federal spending documents maintained by her organization.

The Treasury also provides a federal spending and revenue tracker, while USASpending.gov touts itself as the government’s “official open data source of federal spending information.”