President Joe Biden’s controversial son Hunter Biden has been spending large amount of American tax payer’s money towards private luxury. According to media reports, Hunter Biden is apparently spending his father’s presidency living in luxury in Malibu – and so his taxpayer-funded security detail.
Quoting familiar sources, ABC News reports, the Secret Service detail protecting the president’s controversial son has been paying more than US$30,000 a month to rent out a swanky Malibu, California, mansion for nearly a year.
The agency responsible for protecting the president and his family – among other ranking government officials — selected the property in order to be located as close as possible to Biden’s own rented mansion where he is paying about US$20,000 a month according to property listings, sources told ABC News.
Retired senior Secret Service agent Don Mihalek, now an ABC News contributor, said the arrangement is “the cost of doing business for the Secret Service”, adding that under the federal law, the agency has a mandated protective responsibility for the president, the first family, and anybody else the president designates for protection.
“Typically, wherever a protectee sets up their residence, the Secret Service is forced to find someplace to rent nearby at market value,” Mihalek said, noting that the agency is also renting out properties to protect President Joe Biden’s residences in Wilmington and Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
“This isn’t new”, Mihalek said. “The Service has had to do this in past administrations, and unfortunately, the housing market right now has driven the prices up substantially.”
A White House official referred ABC News to the Secret Service for comment. Asked about the cost of the protection, a representative for the Secret Service said only: “Due to the need to maintain operational security, the US Secret Service does not comment on the means, methods, or resources used to conduct our protective operations”.
Hunter Biden’s California lifestyle is coming into focus just as the federal probe into his tax affairs has intensified, as sources familiar with the matter recently told ABC News.
An increasing number of witnesses have appeared before a grand jury impaneled in Wilmington, Delaware, in recent months, the sources said, and have been asked about payments Hunter Biden received while serving on the board of directors of Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma, in addition to other questions about how Biden paid off tax obligations in recent years.
“In retrospect, look, I think that it was poor judgment on my part”, Hunter Biden told ABC News anchor Amy Robach in October 2019, regarding serving on the board of Burisma and the impact of his foreign business dealings on his father’s political career. “Is that I think that it was poor judgment because I don’t believe now, when I look back on it – I know that there was – did nothing wrong at all. However, was it poor judgment to be in the middle of something that is … a swamp in — in — in many ways? Yeah”.
The younger Biden, along with other members of the Biden family, began to receive around-the-clock protection from the Secret Service when Joe Biden became the Democratic presidential nominee in June 2020. The family was provided a more robust security detail once the elder Biden won the presidency, which is customary for all immediate members of a president’s family.
In Malibu, Hunter Biden’s digs include a four-bedroom, three-bathroom “resort-style” home with an open floor plan, vaulted high ceilings, chef’s kitchen and French doors, according to a description on its property listing. The mansion also features a “spacious park-like yard” with a pool, a spa, a built-in barbecue bar, and alfresco dining, according to the listing.
The property is located on 0.7 acres atop a hill, and boasts “enchanting” 180-degree panoramic ocean views, the listing says.
Next door is where sources say Biden’s team of Secret Service agents are living and working.
The Spanish-style estate that the Secret Service has rented sits on a 0.7-acre lot above the Malibu coast and also features “gorgeous ocean views,” according to its listing.
With six bedrooms, six bathrooms, a gym, a tasting room, a built-in barbecue, a pool, a spa, and a spiral staircase that leads up to a “castle-like tower to the master retreat with wet bar,” the luxury mansion boasts “resort style living at its finest” and is “a perfect retreat for discerning clientele,” its listing says.
According to experts, a cost of US$30,000 a month for the Secret Service to rent a home in Malibu next to Hunter is an unconscionable burden to taxpayers, all for the personal benefit of Hunter Biden. Hunter should realize this and accommodate his security detail in his own home.
The cost of protecting first families has raised eyebrows in the past.
During the Obama presidency, both of President Barack Obama’s daughters lived in the White House and the president himself visited his private residence in Chicago only a handful of times – but his family made regular visits to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts and took family trips to Honolulu during Christmas, costing the Secret Service millions of dollars each time.
According to spending records obtained by the right-leaning watchdog group Judicial Watch, the Obama family’s trip to Martha’s Vineyard in August 2016 cost the Secret Service a whopping US$2.7 million, including US$2.5 million in hotels and US$90,000 in rental cars, while the family’s final Christmas trip to Honolulu in late 2016 cost the agency US$1.9 million, including US$1.8 million in hotels.
First Lady Michelle Obama’s trips to Aspen in 2014, 2015 and 2016 cost the Secret Service more than US$319,000 in taxpayer money, including nearly US$166,000 incurred from the 2016 trip, records obtained by the group show.
And Joe Biden, as vice president during Obama’s presidency, collected US$2,200 a month in payments from the Secret Service by renting out a cottage on his Delaware property for the agents protecting him, according to past media reports and federal spending records.
