Revealed! Dick Cheney charged Secret Service rent, lining his pockets with government cash

August 1, 2011 | Filed under Joe Biden | Posted by

Outrageous no?  Indeed… except… Dick Cheney didn’t (for if he did, you can be assured that we’d all know about it)… instead, it’s Joe Biden who’s making money off the Secret Service, and because it’s Joe Biden, this will become a non-starter and be largely ignored by the MSM:

The U.S. Secret Service does more than protect Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. —  the agency also pays him rent.

Since April, Mr. Biden has collected more than $13,000 from the agency charged with protecting him and his family for use of a rental cottage adjacent to the waterfront home he owns in a Wilmington, Del., suburb.

Mr. Biden, listed not as vice president in federal purchasing documents but as a “vendor,” is eligible for up to $66,000 by the time the government contract expires in the fall of 2013, the records show.

Officials say the arrangement came about when a previous tenant moved out of the cottage and the Secret Service moved in.

Edwin M. Donovan, special agent in charge at the Secret Service’s Office of Government and Public Affairs in Washington, said the agency pays $2,200 in rent per-month, the same amount a previous tenant had paid before moving out.

He said the close location provides a level of security for the Biden family the agency might not have had otherwise. Asked if the Secret Service typically pays rent to the people it protects, he said, “It’s a rental property so we pay rent there.”

Taxpayer watchdogs say the Secret Service should do everything it can to protect Mr. Biden, but they wonder whether he should be collecting rent from the agency while it’s doing its job.

“He should be afforded every single protection available to him and his family, as should every vice president and president,” said Leslie Paige, spokeswoman for the Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste.

“But this arrangement seems bizarre to me,” she added. “You’d think the vice president, who shepherded the deficit committee, would think twice about charging the Secret Service rent. Why would he need the money? I don’t get it.”

You’d think… but you’d be wrong… because you don’t take into account the complete hypocrisy we see time and again from this administration… and from those who cover them.

C’mon 2012, get here.

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Posted by on August 1, 2011.
Filed under Joe Biden.
I blog more regularly at my own place where plain thoughts are delivered roughly. My about page gives you more on who I am.

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  • Anonymous

    Who leaked this?  For what purpose?

    My guess:  Obama/Clinton 2012

    • Frank O’Connell

      I’ll take Clinton/Obama 2012 instead.

      Or Clinton/YoMama would work also…

      I’m tired of Obama giving the farm away to the whiners and liars. We need someone other than Obama to move the progressive platform forward. Obama is a centrist who seems to start every negotiations with “We’ll give you more than you’ve asked for… please don’t hurt us too badly.”

      ‘Cept when ti comes to the Hobbits. The Hobbits have gotten a timeout and must stand in the corner of the dark forest…

  • Jeff Blogworthy

    I wouldn’t exactly consider it the crime of the century. Biden ought to be able to rent the property to whoever he wants. At the same time, wisdom would seem to dictate a bit of discretion on his part. Like when you take your adult kids or your employees out for dinner you always pick up the check as a matter of courtesy.. Unless you’re Biden, I guess.

    • Anonymous

      Right, not the crime of the century, but dumb politics and a reason to dump him as running mate.  Expect the stories of “unnamed sources in the Obama administration” to begin soon.  Obama’s gonna need Hillary to jazz things up, Biden gets him nothing.

      • http://2011.ak4mc.us/ McGehee

        Biden was supposed to be Obama’s impeachment insurance. Why are you trying to get Obama impeached (in the extremely, laughably, ridiculously unlikely event he got re-elected, of course)?

    • Anonymous

      “At the same time, wisdom would seem to dictate…”

      See, right there is where you went astray, Jeff. We’re talking Joe Biden here. But this makes sense both in its practicality and economics from the Secret Service’s standpoint.

  • Anonymous

    Let’s hope he hasn’t been pulling a Wrangel with the proceeds. In all fairness to the VP, though, one has to consider the other side of the situation: if the Bidens have been renting out that house for years for income generation, why should he and his family be expected to take a hit financially because he’s now the VP? It was income-generating property before his status changed; it’s not as if he cooked up a scheme to defraud the government.

    It is for this reason that I also felt the Feds owed the Cheneys lost interest income on the investment portfolio he was forced to give up upon becoming VP in 2001.

  • Anonymous

    It’s for the children!

  • jim_m

    Unless he is charging a rent that is higher than the market price or significantly higher than what he was collecting before I don’t see where this is a story.

    • Mr Kimber

      I agree Jim I don’t see a big issue…who knew Biden was a closet capitalist.

  • Anonymous

    The point is had Cheney done this, it would be mainline news for a week. ww

  • http://www.facebook.com/BobboDaGreen Bob Carpenter

    Put yourself in his shoes. You own a property with a house and guest cottage on it. You have a tenant who pays rent leave. Your gardener is interested in renting the cottage. He works for you, are you still going to charge him rent?

    The secret service is going to be paying rent to someone some where anyways to protect Biden. What makes this deal better is they aren’t spending $200 a night per room ($6000/ month per room) for a hotel. They don’t have to waste money on fuel to get from the hotel to his home to protect him or on the trip back to the hotel. Since they are on site and don’t need as many shifts to cover for travel time, that means less servicemen are needed in total for the assignment thus saving more money.

    Looking at the math; $2200/month (for a cottage that fits the whole team) in Biden’s pocket is a better cost for the government than the $6,000/month (per 2-4 agents for each room at a hotel) plus gas, plus extra man power to house the servicemen traditionally.
    So yes he is an opportunist. He’s saving the government money and making some for himself. Whats the problem? He found a solution where everyone (Secret Service, US Tax Payer, and Himself) wins. Hell at least it’s public knowledge and he’s not embezzling the money.

    Seems to me that people reading are jealous of a man who makes more money in more ways than you do.

  • Anonymous

    I recall reading that Bill Clinton had a similar arrangement with the Secret Service after leaving office.  He continued to receive some level of protection, and the Service used a portion of his New York House, but reimbursed him for the use of that portion. 

    I have no problems with this if, as was expressed upstream, the Secret Service is paying market rent for the use of the accommodations.  

  • bkmur

    Secret Service should get their lodging for free? There are basic  constitutional prohbitions against this. Morally, it would’ve been better for them to  occupy — and for us to pay for – the mansion across the street?

    Thin gruel these stories.  If memory service Dickbo Cheney made certai nwhile in office that  his Secret Service detachament would be beefed up AFTER he left office.  Perhaps he was anticipating the rage that he so effortlessly  engenders.

  • Frank O’Connell

    In all fairness, the Hobbits here just hadn’t thought this thing through, and rick Rice just knee-jerked a reaction.

    To Rick, it was another way to blather on about how unfair life is now that Obama is in office.

    After all the commenters told him he was wrong — in this instance at least — Rick readily recognized his error and promised he’d try to do better……

    Not.