The first couple in Florida in March. AP PhotoThe travel costs for vacations taken by the first family and the Bidens have reached over $40 million with the Air Force's revelation that two golf outings by President Obama this year cost $2.9 million, according to the taxpayer watchdog group Judicial Watch.
The group said that the Air Force provided documents and records that put the price of the first family's trip toKey Largo, Fla., in March at $885,683 just for flying Air Force One. The travel costs to golf in Palm Springs, Calif., in February, where the president also met with King Abdullah II of Jordan, was $2,066,594, said the Air Force documents, according to Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch has been filing repeated Freedom of Information Act requests for travel costs and the Air Force has provided many documents during the administration.
So far, Judicial Watch said that it has tabulated vacation travel costs, mostly just Air Force jet time, at over $40 million. Far more money is spent on accommodations, communications, rooms and cars for staff, security and U.S. Secret Service protection, Navy and Coast Guard ships offshore and the prepositioning of cars and helicopters, but those costs are not usually revealed.
“It is clear that the Obamas continually abuse the perks of the president’s office at taxpayer expense,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement to Secrets. “And it is particularly interesting that Obama has chosen to take not one but two luxury vacations back-to-back while inveighing against ‘income equality.’ President Obama’s waste of the hard-earned tax dollars of working Americans on unnecessary luxury travel is an abuse of office.”
Editor's note: Judicial Watch is representing the Washington Examiner in the newspaper's federal lawsuit seeking access to Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recordsunder FOIA.
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