Senators Suspect Trump Shifted Secret Service Funds to Build His Ballroom

Congress turned down President Donald Trump’s request for funding for his modernization efforts at the White House – mainly out of concern that he would tap taxpayer dollars for his proposed ballroom.

Now, the president is turning to a pot of money Congress approved last year for the U.S. Secret Service.

Records show that the White House Office of Management and Budget last week quietly apportioned $352 million from Trump’s tax cuts law, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, for “White House Security Measures.”

The tax law, which passed with Republican-only votes last summer before Trump tore down the East Wing of the White House and began construction of a ballroom, states that the funding can only be used for “United States Secret Service resources, including personnel, training facilities, programming, and technology,” as well as other personnel costs.

It’s not clear exactly what the funds will be used for. Asked to explain the transfer on Wednesday, an OMB official brought up the ballroom unprompted and said its construction will be funded by private donors.

“The ballroom will be built with private donations the President has secured,” a senior administration official said in a statement to NOTUS. “The administration and the President have been very clear about the need for additional security at the White House complex and the role the Secret Service, in addition to other White House components, will play in supporting the necessary security elements associated with the East Wing Modernization project.”

The administration maintains the funds are being directed in a manner consistent with the law, and that the Secret Service needs the money to upgrade security at the White House complex. It also argues the funding is necessary given recent failed attacks targeting Trump, including one at the UFC match this past weekend and the White House Correspondents’ Dinner shooting earlier this year.

However, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle suspect the funds are going toward construction of the ballroom, which is still being challenged in federal court.

“That’s a big problem,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) told NOTUS. “That sounds like a different way to fund the East Wing project. If the East Wing needs support, we should be transparent about if that is in fact what happened. It seems strangely similar to the ask of Congress, but my God, we just had people from [the] Secret Service coming here saying they needed more money, how they needed more funding, and now we may be shifting it away from a Secret Service priority. I just need details. On its face it doesn’t sound right.”

“I don’t know whether it’s the ballroom, but it sounds like the ballroom,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a senior appropriator.

“I think there’s been more and more credible coverage that President Trump was just flat out lying when he said the taxpayers will not pay a dime for his ballroom,” said Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware). “I think he is now trying to find ways to funnel public money into it.”

Earlier this week, The Washington Post reported that internal estimates put the cost of the ballroom at $600 million, with more than half coming from taxpayers, undercutting Trump’s repeated promises it would be fully paid for by private donors.

This is not the first time the Trump administration has taken advantage of the loose instructions in the reconciliation bill to direct taxpayer dollars toward pet projects not envisioned by Congress.

Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem flew around the country in a luxury jet paid for with millions in funds from the One Big Beautiful Bill. The OMB eventually gave DHS more than $200 million from reconciliation bill funding for “border security executive travel,” including leasing jets, NOTUS previously reported.

And when Trump wanted to aggressively grow federal law enforcement presence in Washington, D.C., his administration redirected $100 million in tax law funds to hire 300 Park Police officers just for the nation’s capital.

That has raised a whole new budget headache for Congress: Because the reconciliation bill was a one-time influx of cash, Congress will be forced to dramatically increase the taxpayer-funded budget for the Park Police if it wants to avoid laying off those newly hired officers.