By Luke Broadwater, The New York Times, October 19,2024
WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Friday accused former President Donald Trump of accepting “hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments’’ through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, moving weeks before the election to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to divest from his businesses while in office.
The 58-page report from Democrats on the Oversight Committee includes their final findings in a yearslong investigation digging into the Trump Organization’s management of the hotel. It accuses Trump of ripping off the Secret Service by charging the agency exorbitant rates and of inappropriately accepting payments from clients who worked for state governments or were seeking appointments and pardons from him.
“Mr. Trump has made clear that he will not only refuse to divest from his businesses in a possible future presidency, but he will seek to multiply opportunities to commodify the Oval Office for his personal enrichment by turning thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions — all with the attendant payoff possibilities from supplicant job seekers and the prospective blessing of his handpicked Supreme Court justices,’’ said Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee.
House Republicans dismissed the report as old news and accused Democrats of hypocrisy for investigating Trump but not members of President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter.
“Unlike the Bidens, the Trumps actually have businesses and made money from the services they provided,’’ said Jessica Collins, a spokesperson for the Republican-led House Oversight Committee. “Today’s report is more recycled garbage from the Democrats’ fruitless and close to a decade-long investigation of President Trump.’’
The committee has already documented how officials from other countries spent lavishly at Trump’s hotel in Washington while he was president and how the Secret Service was charged hefty prices for rooms.
Eric Trump, the former president’s son, has repeatedly claimed the organization charged the Secret Service a discounted rate. He has also said that any profit the company earned on the hotel stays from foreign officials was returned to the federal government through a voluntary annual payment to the Treasury Department. The Trump Organization has also said it did not have the ability to stop anyone from booking through third parties at the hotel.
“This is just another desperate attempt by House Democrats to rehash an old unsubstantiated story just two weeks before the upcoming presidential election in a last-minute effort to gain ground in the polls,’’ said Kimberly Benza, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization. “To be clear, the Trump Organization does not profit whatsoever from any government officials staying at our properties.’’
But the report seeks to undercut those statements.
“Not only did President Trump’s hotel often charge the Secret Service far more than authorized federal government rates, the hotel also charged the agency far more than hundreds of other patrons, including members of a foreign royal family and a Chinese business interest,’’ the report states.
Democrats on the panel previously found the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting Trump and his family.
The latest report compares how much the Secret Service was charged at the hotel on the same nights as other guests.
For example, it says that on Nov. 28, 2017, the Secret Service approved a waiver to pay a room rate of $600 when the per diem for that month was $201 — a 300% markup. Room records show that a dozen rooms were rented that same night to the Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Co. Ltd., which is headquartered in China, for a lower rate: $338.85 each.
The report also analyzes payments made by federal and state officials staying at the hotel, as well as people who sought — and obtained — favors from Trump, including federal jobs in his administration and presidential pardons. In just 11 months of the Trump hotel’s guest logs, the committee found 16 examples of state or federal officials who paid for rooms there, often while on official travel. The committee said such room rentals possibly violated the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause if any taxpayer funds were used.
Image Credits: Julio Cortez – Associated Press
