Ronald Kessler - The First Family Detail

Besides that, “The Secret Service rents condos in Wilmington because his schedule is so fluid and never concrete enough to properly prepare for his visits to Delaware,” the agent says. “So they keep a fully staffed Secret Service advance team in Delaware in condominiums that we lease so that when he does these things back and forth to D.C., they’re up there ready for him to arrive.”

Until now, Biden has managed to keep the details of his personal trips and the costs a secret. Seeking to get the answers, I filed a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request with the Air Force in April 2013. Having received no response three months later, I looked into it and learned from Air Force sources what had happened behind the scenes: Air Force FOIA officers had done their jobs and within a few weeks of my request had compiled the information, including the dates of Biden’s trips, empty so-called deadhead trips to pick him up or leave him off, and the actual costs by type of aircraft.

But in what amounts to a cover-up on behalf of the vice president, on June 6, Biden’s office blocked transmitting the results to me and told Air Force officers they were not to comment to anyone about the case.

Instead, in an e-mail to the Air Force chief of Special Air Missions—which arranges flights for Obama, Biden, Cabinet officers, members of Congress, and foreign dignitaries—Jessica R. Hertz, who is Biden’s deputy counsel in his Senate office, expressed a series of “concerns” about the FOIA request and claimed she did not fully understand what I was requesting.

Hertz has no trouble understanding the English language: In 2007 and 2008, she was a U.S. Court of Appeals clerk to Judge Sonia Sotomayor before President Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court. In 2009, Sotomayor officiated at Hertz’s wedding at the Metropolitan Club in New York.

Hertz placed herself in charge of the FOIA case and, on the grounds that they were not “source documents,” ordered Air Force FOIA officers not to give me the ninety-five pages of records they had already compiled in response to my request. Rather, she instructed, to retrieve the flight data, Air Force officers must examine individual logs of each aircraft Biden flew on going back to January 2009, when he took office.

To make the release of the data even less likely, Hertz told the chief of Special Air Missions that the Secret Service would have to be consulted before any data would be provided to me. In addition, any official statement about the case would have to come from Biden’s office, she told the Air Force in an e-mail.

Calling Hertz’s claims “ridiculous,” an Air Force officer familiar with the matter said the data compiled in response to the FOIA request were the Air Force’s computer records that come directly from aircraft flight logs.

“They are covering up,” the Air Force officer said. “We spent a lot of time compiling the records, but Biden’s office said logs for each flight would have to be consulted. This is a smokescreen designed to delay providing any records as long as possible.”

Contrary to Hertz’s claim to the Air Force that individual flight logs must be examined, the Freedom of Information Act requires the government to provide access to existing “records,” which specifically include electronic computerized records. The act says nothing about “source documents.” Moreover, nonpolitical government employees are supposed to process FOIA requests, releasing documents regardless of whether they may embarrass the brass. In this case, the brass took over.

After hearing from Hertz, the Pentagon transferred the FOIA request to the Air Mobility Command, which includes the 89th Airlift Wing, the Air Force component responsible for Air Force One and Air Force Two. Regardless of which plane is used, aircraft carrying the president are identified with the call sign Air Force One, while flights transporting the vice president are designated Air Force Two. The command told me a response to the FOIA request would be delayed because of the “high-level coordination required on these types of records.”

The attempt by the vice president’s office to suppress results already compiled appears to be unprecedented and conflicts with Obama’s directive to agencies to “apply a presumption of openness in responding to FOIA requests.” Much like President Nixon’s cover-ups, it is an effort to direct government officials to hide personal abuse.

Despite the cover-up, shortly after Hertz intervened, an Air Force officer provided me with the records compiled in response to the FOIA request that Hertz claimed she did not understand. The officer was outraged that Biden’s office would taint the Air Force by politicizing its FOIA process. Without telling her that I had already received the records in question, I e-mailed Hertz to ask what she did not understand about my request. She did not respond.

The Air Force records show that from the time Biden took office in January 2009 until March 2013, the vice president’s trips back and forth between Andrews and Wilmington cost taxpayers $979,680 for fuel and maintenance. That figure does not include the additional costs of flying Biden on the Marine Two helicopter to and from the vice president’s residence at the Naval Observatory and Andrews. Nor does it include crew costs for his frequent trips.

In fiscal year 2012, the cost to taxpayers for Biden’s Air Force Two flights alone amounted to $288,080, including deadhead trips. The flights totaled 62.8 hours on a C-32, which is the military version of the Boeing 757-200; on a C-40B, which is a Boeing 737-700; and on a C-20B, C-37A, or C-37B, which are Gulfstream aircraft.

The records show Biden thinks nothing of flying back and forth to Wilmington multiple times on the same day. For example, on Friday, February 8, 2013, Biden flew from Andrews to Wilmington and back to Andrews on a C-37A, then returned that same day to Wilmington on a C-20B. Since deadhead flights were required to pick him up or drop him off, that taxi service entailed four flights in one day at taxpayer expense.

In some cases, because Biden must be on a flight before the Air Force will pay for it, he has flown from Andrews to Wilmington to pick up his wife, Jill, then immediately flown back with her to Washington, according to an Air Force source who arranges his flights. In addition, according to an Air Force source, Biden regularly schedules a single public event in Arizona so he can fly there on Air Force Two at government expense with his family to play golf.

Biden’s use of Air Force assets to play golf with President Obama is even more egregious. For example, on Saturday, April 21, 2012, Biden flew from Wilmington to Andrews to play golf with Obama, White House trip director Marvin Nicholson, and White House staffer Mike Brush.

Biden then flew back to Wilmington, requiring two deadhead flights. Including the deadhead trips, the cost to taxpayers for that one golfing outing back and forth on a C-20B was $12,406. Since Air Force Two parks at Andrews for these games, Obama is obviously aware that Biden is running up a colossal government tab for each game of golf he plays with him.

More than six months after Biden’s counsel Hertz intervened, an Air Mobility Command Freedom of Information Act officer responded to my FOIA request and provided the records of Biden’s trips that Hertz had tried to suppress. They confirm that between March 2009 and March 2013, Biden flew to Wilmington or flew back to Washington two hundred twenty-five times. The personal trips required a total of four hundred flights, including deadhead trips.

Biden’s press office had no comment on his trips.

In view of his trips, Secret Service agents on Biden’s detail chuckled when Obama announced in 2011 that he was placing Biden in charge of a Campaign to Cut Waste that was supposed to root out unnecessary government spending. In making the announcement, Obama said Biden would “hunt down and eliminate misspent tax dollars in every agency and department across the federal government.”