Today the White House announced that President Trump was donating his 1st quarter salary to the National Park Service. The announcement was made during the regular press briefing by White House spokesman Sean Spicer.
“The president has spoken with counsel and made the decision to donate his first-quarter salary in total to a government entity,” Spicer said. He continued, “He has chosen this quarter to donate it to the National Park Service.”
“It is my pleasure on behalf of the President of the United States to present a check for $78,333 to the Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke and Superintendent of the Harper’s Ferry park sites, superintendent Brandenburg,” Spicer said as he presented the check. Secretary Zinke came to the podium and said the donation would be used for “infrastructure on our nation’s battlefields.”
Last month, White House spokesman Sean Spicer announced that President Trump would be keeping his promise to donate his salary to charity. Spicer also threw the media a curveball when he announced the president wanted the media to help decide where the money would be donated. “He wants to donate it to charity, and he’d love your help to determine where it should go,” Spicer said.
There was what appeared to be an early clash between the incoming administration and the Park Service. In January, a few days after the inauguration, the Twitter account for Badlands NPS tweeted out climate change information that seemed aimed at challenging the administration. The Park Service told a Buzzfeed reporter the account had been “compromised” by a former employee. The tweets were removed but the Park Service said at the time they had not been ordered to remove them.
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