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Not to mention all the vacations when she took her kids... aunts....cousins and friends!!! It has been estimated at over 100 MILLION. I wonder too how much it cost taxpayers to support Michelle's mother in the WH for eight years???

We all know the rules are a little different for the political class. But Michelle Obama’s recent trips overseas hardly qualify as official business. They are lavish, extravagant, and excessive by any reasonable metric. Moreover, these latest revelations are hardly isolated.

They are part of continuum reaching back across to the earliest days of the Obama administration. Recently, Judicial Watch obtained flight expense records from the U.S. Department of the Air Force revealing that Michelle Obama’s June 2015 trip to the United Kingdom and Italy, accompanied by her daughters and mother, cost the taxpayers $240,495.67 in flight expenses alone.

The records were released in response to a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request filed on June 22, 2015. The flights to London, England; and Milan, Venice, and Vicenza, Italy, for the June 15 – 21, 2015, trip totaled 20:35 hours at the cost of $11,684 per hour, bringing the flight expense total to $240,495.67, according to the Air Force documents.

The Obama White House, true to form, tried spin the trip as a public service that was part of Michelle Obama’s campaign to push her “Let Girls Learn” initiative and “Let’s Move” anti-obesity campaign.

Good grief. Everyone should deny themselves and streamline their lifestyles except for the Obamas.

Press reports make it evident the Obama entourage set aside substantial time for tourism. In London, Michelle Obama joined Prince Harry for afternoon tea at Kensington Palace.

And the White House press office conceded that, while in Italy, “The First Lady will also visit cultural sites in Venice before returning to Washington, D.C.”

The U.S. Secret Service has not yet responded to the request for attendant costs for personnel, accommodations, meals, rental cars, and related expenses.

Judicial Watch released records revealing significant taxpayer-funded travel expenses for a Michelle Obama trip in July. Those records from the U.S. Department of the Air Force showed that Michelle Obama’s 2014 trip to China cost American taxpayers $362,523.53 in travel expenses alone. Mrs. Obama, her daughters, and her mother spent March 19 – 26 in China, in a trip highlighted by extended visits to some of the country’s most popular tourist sites.

Apparently, the Obama family continues to bill the taxpayers for costly tourism jaunts thinly disguised as humanitarian crusades. If Michelle Obama wants to take tea with Prince Harry or enthuse over Da Vinci’s The Last Supper, she is certainly entitled to do so, but not at taxpayer expense.

Since the beginning of Barack Obama’s administration, the Obamas have become increasingly notorious for unnecessary, luxurious travel, under the guise of official business. According to records obtained by Judicial Watch through FOIA requests and subsequent lawsuits, the Obamas and Bidens have spent millions of taxpayer dollars on trips, beginning with the Obamas’ much-publicized New York City “date night” in 2009 up through the president’s most frequent golf outings and the first lady’s Aspen ski jaunts.

Judicial Watch uncovered an expensive combination of trips by the Obamas to Africa and Honolulu, which cost taxpayers $15,885,585.30 in flight expenses alone. The single largest prior known expense for accommodations was for Michelle Obama’s side-trip to Dublin, Ireland, during the 2013 G-8 conference in Belfast, when she and her entourage booked 30 rooms at the five-star Shelbourne Hotel, and where she stayed in the 1500 square-foot Princess Grace suite at a cost of $3,500 a night.

The total cost to taxpayers for the Obamas’ Ireland trip was $7,921,638.66. To date, the known beyond-first-class travel expenses of the Obamas and Vice President Joe Biden exceed $57 million.

In February, Michelle Obama took a weekend trip to Aspen, Colorado that cost taxpayers a pretty penny; $57,068.80 in travel expenses alone for the 7.4 hour-round trip flight, according to U.S.Air Force records.

As we previously reported, this Aspen trip occurred in tandem with President Obama’s trip to California to play golf, speak at a cyber-security summit, and headline a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.

The First Lady and her daughters spent Valentine’s Day weekend skiing in Aspen, returning to the White House on February 16.

The next time the First Family travels – hold on to your wallet.

Tom Fitton is the president of Judicial Watch. He is a nationally recognized expert on government corruption. A former talk radio and television host and analyst, Tom is well known across the country as a national spokesperson for the conservative cause. He has been quoted in Time, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and most every other major newspaper in the country.

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When the Obamas visited Northern Ireland in 2013, Michelle Obama took her daughters on a two-day, side-trip to Dublin. That side-trip alone cost U.S. taxpayers a quarter-million dollars, including a $3,300-a-night hotel suite of the sort Mrs. Obama prefers. The Obamas' Ireland trip set us back just under $8 million.

Dublin rental cars alone for the first lady cost $114,000.

In 2014 when Mrs. Obama, her mother and daughters toured China, she stayed in Beijing's Westin Hotel in a suite costing you $8,400 per night. Previously, that price was deemed too expensive for Vice President Joe Biden to use.

However, JB does OK. On a European jaunt two years ago Biden and his unusually large entourage had a hotel bill in London of $460,000 for one night.

The next night in Paris, the vice presidential party -- and we do mean party -- ran up one-night hotel charges of $585,000.50. Now, that's a lot of mini-bar items and in-room movies.

Oh, and both those government hotel contracts were done on a no-bid basis, eliminating messy competition and cost-cutting. 

 

AND even old momma got to bring along her friends. There is NO telling what momma cost us!!

Barack Obama spent more time golfing than any other president in history. When all was said and done, the golfer-in-chief had spent 264 days of his 8-year reign of terror on the links at the taxpayer expense.

After figuring in greens fees, transportation, security, food, beverages and equipment, the final cost came to just over $1 billion.

You heard that right. $1 billion for one man to walk around luxury country clubs all over the world playing a game he’s not all that good at to begin with.

 

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Any trip by president or family must be done with expenses. They can't get a ticket on a commercial plane.  And we can't expect them to sit in the white house.  I would appreciate if they would support our country in a positive manner.

IMO the only true comparison we can do is staff, cost of operating the White house.   I might ask since Bush, Clinton and Obama all are rich and make millions because of being president. Why don't they give up their paychecks like Trump does? 

Trump more than pays his way by way of trillions of dollars which this
country hasn't seen since Reagan.
 
Obuma made more than you would think, but was smart enough to
wait until he left the Wipehouse and very soon the balance rose to
around 100 million. Even at 168 hrs a week that's a nice hourly wage
for 8 years.
 
Well there was that down time with a US Ambassador, trouble in an
Islamic country for some reason.
@1130 posted:

Any trip by president or family must be done with expenses. They can't get a ticket on a commercial plane.  And we can't expect them to sit in the white house.  I would appreciate if they would support our country in a positive manner.

IMO the only true comparison we can do is staff, cost of operating the White house.   I might ask since Bush, Clinton and Obama all are rich and make millions because of being president. Why don't they give up their paychecks like Trump does? 

I'd be more than  happy to give up 4 million, over 4 years, to collect 100 million.. .while my cult followers praised me for it.
Stupid is as stupid does... or to put it simply, being a Republican is being a Republican.

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