2016 presidential campaigns owe Secret Service $3.9 million, GAO says
WASHINGTON _ Four 2016 presidential campaign committees owe a combined $3.9 million to the Secret Service after the agency overpaid the campaigns in reimbursements for travel costs for agents who accompanied candidates and their families.
The Government Accountability Office issued a report Thursday analyzing the debts owed by the campaign committees of President Donald Trump, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
GAO investigators found the Secret Service committed numerous errors documenting lodging bills and calculating travel reimbursement amounts. When the agency discovered it had been misinterpreting internal policies for reimbursing campaigns, it did not ensure that agents knew to change how they paid back campaigns for travel costs.
"The Secret Service is incredibly proud of how we operated during the 2016 campaign, and like any high performance operation we are committed to continual improvement," the agency said in a statement Thursday. "After the issues highlighted in the report were brought to our attention, the Secret Service took immediate action to address them."
The agency has not yet recovered money from the campaigns for the overpayments.
Federal agencies are usually required to collect debts owed to the U.S. government that have been determined by an appropriate official, according to the GAO report. Those debts include overpayments.
So the Secret Service must now collect the $3.9 million in overpayments.
The problem? Some candidates, especially Clinton and Carson, have mostly emptied their campaign committee coffers.
_CQ Roll Call
