Albuquerque Sends Unpaid Trump Reelection Campaign Bill to Collections Agency
The New Mexico city of Albuquerque has sent an unpaid bill for former President Donald Trump to a collection agency.
The bill for $211,175.94 stems from an event organized by Trump's reelection campaign in 2019 in the nearby city of Rio Rancho, The Albuquerque Journal reported Thursday.
The city covered the security costs of Trump's stay in September 2019 at a downtown Albuquerque hotel, and the bill includes the costs of blocking off City Hall and parts of downtown as well as overtime pay for police officers.
The city billed the Trump campaign but has since turned to professional debt collectors after the bill has gone unpaid for more than a year.
Cartoons on President Donald Trump
Appearing on "The Daily Show," Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller said officials decided to bill Trump "because the costs to the city were tremendous."
"They made us shut down downtown. We had to close city hall," Keller said. "And so we decided to just bill the campaign for it and we have yet to get paid."
Keller said Trump "owes us a lot more" because there was "about a day and a half when we couldn't even function as a city." The mayor said no phone calls to the Trump camp have been returned, leading them to hire the collection agency.
"He should be getting these annoying voicemails that we get usually from scam companies where it's like: 'You owe debts,'" Keller said, adding that he believes Trump's Florida estate Mar-a-Lago is "now getting those calls."
The Journal reported that the Albuquerque Police Department incurred $71,242 in expenses to provide more than 1,500 hours of overtime police coverage required during the former president's campaign visit.
The city charged the campaign $7,102 for barricades. Additionally, because Trump stayed in downtown Albuquerque, the Secret Service required the local government to vacate nearby buildings during his stay. However, the city still paid the employees for the hours they did not work, which totaled $132,832.
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