Although the primary season is over and Hillary Clinton has all but secured the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders continues to retain some of the trappings of a primary candidate, including a Secret Service detail.
The Washington Post’s John Wagner reported Sunday that even while Sanders’ presidential campaign has effectively ended, Sanders continues to travel with a crew of Secret Service agents that can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day.
“He’s still a candidate for president, so we continue to protect him,” an agent anonymously told the Post.
The Secret Service began protecting Sanders in early February.
He was one of four presidential primary candidates to receive a Secret Service detail during this election cycle, according to the Post. The others were Clinton and Republicans Ben Carson and Donald Trump.
Trump and Clinton, as their respective party’s expected nominees, continue to be protected by the Secret Service. Carson dropped his detail within days of suspending his campaign, according to the Post.
Although the Vermont senator’s campaign is essentially over, he has pledged to remain an official candidate through the Democratic National Convention, planned for the week of July 25 in Philadelphia.
If his Secret Service detail remains through the convention, an additional $1.3 million could be racked up in public dollars protecting Sanders.
Another carryover from the primary season is Sanders’ use of chartered jets. The campaign has spent more than $5.2 million on private charters, and Sanders took a private plane from Washington, D.C., to Burlington last week after meeting with Clinton.
It’s unclear if Sanders continues to have a contract for private jets, though financial data from June, which is required to be filed with the Federal Election Commission at the end of this month, will shed light on his post-primary spending.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Secret Service still protecting Sanders.
