House Democrats on Friday accused former President Donald J. Trump of receiving “hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically questionable payments” through the Trump International Hotel in 2017 and 2018, weeks before the election. moved to remind voters of the ethical issues raised by his refusal to sell. from his business during his tenure.
The Democratic Oversight Committee’s 58-page report contains the final results of a year-long investigation into the Trump Organization’s hotel operations. The group said Trump defrauded the Secret Service by charging it exorbitant fees and improperly accepted payments from clients who worked for state governments or sought appointments or pardons from him. I’m blaming.
“Mr. Trump has turned the Oval Office into a commodity by not only refusing to divest from business during a potential future presidential run, but also by converting thousands of civil service jobs into patronage positions.” “He has made it clear that he aims to increase his chances of personal enrichment, the possibility of ancillary compensation from job seekers, and the future blessings of his hand-picked Supreme Court justices.” said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat.
House Republicans dismissed the report as old news and accused Democrats of hypocrisy, saying they were investigating Trump but not President Biden’s family, including his son Hunter.
“Unlike the Bidens, the Trumps actually had businesses and made money from the services they provided,” said Jessica Collins, a spokeswoman for the Republican-led House Oversight Committee. “Today’s report recycles garbage from nearly a decade of fruitless investigations into President Trump by Democrats.”
The committee has already documented how officials from other countries spent their lives lavishing at Trump’s hotel in Washington while he was president, and how the Secret Service was charged exorbitant rates for rooms. There is.
The former president’s son Eric Trump has repeatedly claimed that the organization charged the Secret Service discounted rates. He also said the profits the company earned from foreign officials on hotel stays were returned to the federal government through voluntary annual payments to the Treasury Department. The Trump Organization also said it had no ability to prevent people from booking hotels through third parties.
Kimberly Benza, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, said: “This is an old, unsubstantiated story by House Democrats in a last-ditch effort to gain support in the polls just two weeks before the next presidential election.” “It’s another desperate attempt to give back.” “To be clear, the Trump Organization does not profit from having government officials stay at our facilities.”
However, the report seeks to overturn these statements.
“President Trump’s hotel not only charged the Secret Service higher rates, often well above federally authorized rates, but also out-paid hundreds of other guests, including foreign royals and Chinese business associates. and charged the Secret Service much higher fees,” the report said. state.
Democrats on the committee previously revealed that the Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by employees protecting former President Trump and his family. It was clear.
The latest report compares the amount charged by the Secret Service to other hotel guests on the same night.
For example, on November 28, 2017, the Secret Service said it approved waiving a $600 room rate when the per diem for that month was $201 (a 300 percent increase) . According to room records, more than a dozen rooms were rented that night to China-based Inner Mongolia Yitai Coal Co., Ltd. at a lower rate ($338.85 per room).
Benza said the fees charged by the Trump Organization to the Secret Service were “cost price” and “significantly below market value.”
“In fact, in most cases, the Secret Service would have been paid significantly more if they had stayed in a hotel directly across the street,” she says. “Federal law requires this. If not, the Secret Service will respond free of charge.”
The report also analyzes payments made by federal and state officials who stayed at the hotel, as well as people who received or received favors from Mr. Trump, including federal positions in his administration and presidential pardons. In just 11 months of Trump hotel guest records, the committee found 16 instances in which state or federal officials paid for lodging while on official business. The commission said the rental of such rooms could violate the Household Allowance Clause of the Constitution if taxpayer funds were used.
The Democratic Party nominated eight ambassadors. Three people were appointed by Trump to serve as federal judges. two governors. one delegation from the state legislature; The subjects of the analysis were two government employees who stayed at the hotel for 11 months.
Additionally, five people who sought and received presidential pardons – Elliott Brody, Ken Carson, Dinesh D’Souza, James Kasuf and Albert Pirro – stayed at the hotel, the report said. In total, they spent more than $21,000.
Democratic lawmakers on the committee acknowledged that many of the transactions described in the report were not for eye-popping sums. Their cumulative total was about $300,000.
The report also acknowledges its own limitations. Democrats fought aggressively through years of litigation to gain access to just a portion of Trump’s business records. Accounting firm Mazars USA, which had long severed ties with Trump and his family business after winning a court ruling, began turning over documents related to Trump’s financial transactions in 2022.
But once Republicans won the House majority, they halted efforts to force Mazars to continue producing documents related to Trump’s business dealings.
