Evan Vucci/AP
President Donald Trump with Keith Schiller
- Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump's former bodyguard and confidante, has been paid $15,000 per month by the Republican National Committee since he left the White House in September, CNBC reported Wednesday.
The RNC has paid Schiller's private security firm, KS Global Group, $75,000 since October 2017 in exchange for his work on the site selection process for the 2020 Republican National Convention.
Keith Schiller, President Donald Trump's former bodyguard and confidante, has reportedly been paid $15,000 per month by the Republican National Committee since he left the White House in September, CNBC reported Wednesday.
The RNC has paid Schiller's private security firm, KS Global Group, $75,000 since October 2017 in exchange for his work on the site selection process for the 2020 Republican National Convention.
The former director of Oval Office operations and a 20-year Trump aide, Schiller served as a conduit between Trump and his associates outside the West Wing, reliably delivering the president information and news stories before White House chief of staff John Kelly reportedly implemented new restrictions on his role.
If Schiller continues to receive this monthly payment from the RNC until the convention, he'll likely collect more than $500,000, CNBC noted.
Stephen Spaulding, former special counsel at the Federal Election Commission, told CNBC that party accounts like the one being used to pay Schiller are "notorious for being operated as slush funds - lightly regulated and ripe for abuse."
And the amount Schiller collects is more than he made both in the White House - where his annual salary was $165,000 - and on the Trump campaign, which reported paying him $10,000 per month beginning in July 2016.
Schiller made news in November when he privately testified before the House Intelligence Committee about allegations made in an explosive dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, which purported to show the Trump campaign's complicity with Russian interference in the 2016 election.
During his testimony, Schiller said he rejected an offer from a Russian to "send five women" to Trump's Moscow hotel room in 2013.
"We don't do that type of stuff," Schiller reportedly told the Russian.
Last week, The New York Times reported that Trump's inaugural committee paid more than $25 million to an event-planning firm founded by a close adviser to first lady Melania Trump while donating $5 million, a lower-than-expected total, to charity.