In a shocking move, the out-going president Barack Obama spent more than $4.8 million taxpayer’s money in a Hawaii family vacation back in 2015. This was unveiled by the Judicial Watch which is a conservative watchdog through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request which showed that the agency spent $1.2 million on the Hawaii trip.
Then adding on to the expenses that were unveiled in the previous record, the conservative watchdog group estimated the overall cost of Obamas’ trip to Hawaii last December have amounted to over $4.8 million. Surprisingly, Obama’s family has spent a total of $85 million over the last eight years in family vacations.
The Secret Service arrived before Obama’s family and this resulted in an accommodation bill for 19 nights to $1.46 million, this was the Secret Service sole expense. The First Family was scheduled to vacation for 17 days. There was an addition expense of $165,893 that was incurred on 103 rental cars during the whole period of the vacation while $68,964 was spent on rail and air expenses.
In a statement made by Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton, Trump administration should reform the formerly abused Presidential travel. Tom pointed out that the Secret Service and the Air Force are being abused by unnecessary travel. Many are awaiting to see if Trump will forgo luxury vacations, there’s a likelihood that he will.
The Secret Service had previously failed to respond to the Judicial Watch FOIA requests that was sent in January and this led the Judicial watch to file an FOIA lawsuit against the Secret Service in May. The Judicial watch group is known for its track record in filing FOIA requests and lawsuits to expose politicians, the group was set up back in 1994 when Bill Clinton was in power, during this reign, the group filed more than 18 lawsuits against Bill’s administration.
The group was successful in having Clinton’s State Department emails released after filing lawsuits and went ahead to have all the related emails released thereafter.
The group filed a motion on Monday to have videos of depositions unsealed, the videos had been taken during FBI’s investigation on Clinton’s use of private server while she was the Secretary of State.
The group exposed the First Lady Michelle Obama after she tricked taxpayers into funding an African holiday that was disguised as an official visit to further education, this led to many critics against the group’s evaluation on Obama's’ foreign trips.
