MINNEAPOLIS (CelebrityAccess) — Donald Trump’s Presidential Campaign has reportedly threatened to sue the Target Center and AEG after the venue passed along a request from the City of Minneapolis for the campaign to pay costs for a planned rally on Thursday ahead of time.
According to NBC affiliate KARE-11, a letter the campaign sent to the venue on Monday claims the campaign was asked to pay roughly $530,000 to cover security and other costs related to the event, or the venue will not host the event.
The campaign claims that the bill was not about costs, but instead was a ploy by Jacob Frey, the Democratic Mayor of Minneapolis, to stop Trump from holding a rally in the city.
The Campaign also claimed that U.S. Secret Service handles all security and other costs at the President’s campaign rallies.
The President, unsurprisingly, took to Twitter to attack Frey, calling him a lightweight.
Trump’s campaign manager, Brad Parscale, also took to Twitter to attack Frey.
The radical Mayor of Minneapolis, @Jacob_Frey, is abusing his power in an attempt to block the President’s supporters from seeing him speak on Thursday,” Parscale tweeted on Tuesday. “We refuse to be bullied by a left-winger resister & won’t let him stifle the speech of @realDonaldTrump or his supporters!”
Casper Hill, a spokesman for Minneapolis told the Washington Post that the estimated public safety cost for the visit is about $400,000, with an estimated $130,000 needed for lane closures, traffic control, and other such disruptions.
Minneapolis may be right to be worried about being left with unpaid costs for the President’s rally. According to ethics watchdog the Center for Public Integrity, at least ten city governments across the U.S. reported that they have been stiffed by the Trump Campaign over public safety-related costs.
In all, city governments say Trump’s campaign owes them at least $841,219 as of June 2019, with some of the invoices dating back three years, the CPI said.
However, as the CPI noted, in many cases, there are no contracts the municipal governments and the Trump campaign who dispatched police officers to campaign events over public safety concerns and at the request of the Secret Service.
