REVEALED: U.S. taxpayers 'footed a $1,000 liquor bill run up by Trump staffers at Mar-a-Lago, which included top-shelf tequila, vodka, and bourbon' Receipt shows the boozy blowout occurred in Trump's Florida club in April 2017 Chinese president Xi Jinping was visiting and State Department sent staffers Steve Bannon and others kicked bartender out of Mar-a-Lago bar for privacy Club estimated the $1,000 bill for self-served premium pours and sent it to State Incident is just one example of how federal spending goes to Trump properties By Keith Griffith For Dailymail.com Published: 22:08 BST, 2 May 2019 | Updated: 22:08 BST, 2 May 2019 Viewcomments Newly released documents have revealed that taxpayers paid for $1,000 worth of top-shelf liquor imbibed by President Donald Trump's staffers at his own club, Mar-a-Lago. The incident occurred on April 7, 2017, when Chinese president Xi Jinping was visiting Trump's club in Palm Beach, Florida, and was revealed on Thursday through public records reported by ProPublica. The incident is just one instance among many of federal expenditures at Trump properties to accommodate the president's travel. After Trump and his top advisors joined Xi and his delegation for a sumptuous meal of Dover sole and New York strip steak, part of the group repaired to the club's Library Bar, best known for a portrait of young Trump in tennis wear titled 'The Visionary.' The incident occurred on April 7, 2017, when Chinese president Xi Jinping was visiting Trump's club in Palm Beach, Florida (above) It's not clear who was in the group at the bar, though it included then-deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin and then-strategist Steve Bannon, who has stated that he quit drinking years ago. The group then asked the bartender to leave so they could 'speak confidentially', according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson. The Secret Service guarded the door to the Library Bar and forbade the bartender to re-enter, leaving the group to serve themselves from the bar, Watson said. As the night went on, the drinks flowed, and nobody paid. Six days later, staff at Mar-a-Lago calculated the bill and sent it to the State Department. The bill charged for $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20 per cent service fee. It covered 54 drinks, at an average price of $18.62 each, of premium liquor: Chopin vodka, Patron and Don Julio Blanco tequilas and Woodford Reserve bourbon. Mar-a-Lago's catering director explained the charges in this email to the State Department The bill for the booze charged for $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20 per cent service fee It is not clear how many people were drinking, or how many drinks each person had. Bannon told ProPublica he did not drink at Mar-a-Lago, and that he did not remember the specific incident. Hagin did not respond to the publication. Trump himself is a teetotaler, and the documents do not suggest that he himself was in the Library Bar during the incident. The emails were released as part of an ongoing lawsuit between the nonprofit Property of the People, a Washington-based transparency group, and the federal government. According to ProPublica, Trump's campaign and administration have spent a total of more than $16 million at Trump-owned properties since 2015. Taxpayer dollars accounted for $386,000 of that spending, according to the report. Read more: Share or comment on this article: All rights reserved for this news site dailymail and under his responsibility