Donald Trump Jr.’s Mongolia Trip Cost Taxpayers $75,000 To Hunt Endangered Sheep Breed

Donald Trump Jr.’s trip to Mongolia last August cost taxpayers $75,859.36 in Secret Service charges. Trump Jr. traveled there in order to hunt argali, an endangered breed of sheep. 

It was originally disclosed to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that the trip would cost $17,704 in Secret Service charges. However, these documents did not include Trump Jr.’s stop in Ulaanbaatar to meet with the president of Mongolia Khaltmaagiin Battulga and what it cost to bring the Secret Service there. 

CREW decided to sue over the issue and call for a Freedom of Information Act request, which lead the government to give additional documents regarding the trip. These revealed that the entire hunting trip cost almost $60,000 more than what was originally stated. 

CREW responded in a statement saying, “As a son of the president, Donald Trump Jr. is entitled to Secret Service protection and should be protected, but taxpayers deserve to know how much they are paying to facilitate his trophy hunting and interactions with major political donors and foreign leaders.”

Previously to this, it came up that Trump Jr. did not have the Mongolian permits required in order to hunt argali. An animal conservation group the Center for Biological Diversity looked to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to see if Trump Jr. had brought any of the argali back into the country, breaking United States law. However, he eventually received the permits and there was no need to investigate on criminal charges. 

Animal rights activist and critics have long come after Trump Jr. especially during the 2016 presidential election when photographs of him with a dead leopard, an elephant’s tail and an elk went viral.