Sheriff Hopping Mad After Pence Skips Out on $24,000 Bill at $700,000 Campaign Fundraiser

Vice President Mike Pence visits n Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, AK, on, Monday, February 5, 2018, i. (Official White House Photo by D. Myles Cullen)

“We’re not done,” the sheriff says.

A Colorado law enforcement officer is furious after Vice President Mike Pence came to Aspen, headlined an “intimate” $35,000 per couple Trump campaign fundraiser at a private members-only club ironically owned by two gay men, and left without paying his bill.

“You raise $700,000 in an hour, you should be able to pitch in to support the community that made you feel welcome,” Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo, speaking about the bill, told the Aspen Daily News.

Sheriff DiSalvo says the Vice President made no attempt to pay the $24,000 bill for local law enforcement, and made no attempt to even tell him where to send the bill. Ultimately, Pitkin County taxpayers may be on the hook.

“We had a SWAT team from Garfield County here that I want to see get reimbursed. We had Carbondale officers here that I want to see get reimbursed. They don’t have this kind of money — I don’t have this kind of money,” DiSalvo said.

“We had 64 total police officers on that assignment in the 20 or so hours that he was here, totaling 519 person hours,” DiSalvo continued. “Out of those 64, 14 were state troopers, and we don’t have a responsibility to pay them. But the 50 other cops that were here are all on the county dime.”

“I guess the whole thing is generally just somewhat disappointing to me,” DiSalvo added.

On Monday Sheriff DiSalvo had said, “I’m concerned we’re gonna get stiffed.” It appears he may have been right.

DiSalvo was not the only Pitkin County official who’s angry.

County Commissioner Greg Poschman told fellow commissioners “it was disturbing to me that candidates from both parties blow into town, collect a briefcase full of cash and then blow back out again without really ever doing any public outreach.”

“Mike Pence was just here … and cost us a lot of time and effort when everyone was stuck waiting for his way-oversized motorcade to go through. He could have driven through in a Jeep with a hat and sunglasses and nobody would’ve noticed.”

Poschman added, “does our sheriff really need to call up and make a strong suggestion that they pay their bill before they leave town? That doesn’t sit well with me, and I’m guessing it doesn’t sit well with the community, either.”

DiSalvo appears to agree.

“We’re not done,” DiSalvo says.