First Lady Melania Trump dropped six figures on hotels for a 12-hour trip to Canada last year. Photo / Getty Images
First Lady Melania Trump dropped six figures on hotels for a 12-hour trip to Canada last year. Photo / Getty Images
A hefty six-figure bill racked up by Melania Trump for two hotels that went largely unused during a one-day trip to Canada has raised serious questions.
Government spending documents released last week reveal the First Lady's visit to Toronto in September last year to attend the Invictus Games cost a whopping NZ$253,000 (USD$174,000) in hotel charges.
Ms Trump billed taxpayers for two hotels — the Ritz Carlton and Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel — where she held a handful of meetings and did not stay.
The Ritz-Carlton in Toronto was one of two hotels Melania Trump charged taxpayers for. Photo / Getty Images
Mrs Trump's trip to Toronto, where she met with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Britain's Prince Harry, lasted just 12 hours. She also attended the Invictus Games.
Stephanie Grisham, Mrs Trump's spokeswoman, argued that the bill was standard and included a number of essential expenses.
"What I can tell you is that when the President or First Lady travels, there are people who travel ahead on the advance team to ensure safety measures, medical care, communications, motorcade needs and logistics are all in place," Ms Grisham told Quartz.
"Ms Trump travels with a much smaller contingent of staff than that of her predecessors, but the entities I mentioned above are legally required for all official travel."
However, that explanation has been disputed. Quartz reported that the six-figure bill was for just Ms Trump's hotels and that her staff's expenses and other travel costs were in addition.
The Sheraton Centre hotel complex in Toronto. Photo / Getty Images
There was another NZ$26,000 (US$18,000) spent on hotel rooms for her advance team.
Mrs Trump's hotel costs were incurred despite her not requiring rooms for the brief trip and Quartz raised questions over why her total trip bill was so high.
It published a schedule of her engagements that day, which included meetings at both hotels for durations of 20 minutes or less.
Melania Trump met Prince Harry for 20 minutes at one of the hotels she booked for a 12-hour trip to Canada last year. Photo / Getty Images
The hotel expenses were separated into a number of line items on the government spending reports, including "miscellaneous foreign awardees".
It's not the first time Ms Trump's spending on foreign trips has been questioned, with a NZ$138,000 (US$95,000) hotel bill covered by taxpayers during a day in Cairo, Egypt earlier this year.
Also on that occasion, Ms Trump did not use the hotel rooms in the end.
