The Trump Organization is making another attempt to sell the lease to its D.C. hotel after failing to close a deal on the property during the pandemic, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The Pennsylvania Avenue hotel became a popular destination for lobbyists and foreign government officials during former President Trump’s tenure, but Trump’s election loss and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused its profits to plummet.
The Trump Organization is hiring brokerage firm Newmark Group to sell the property, two sources told the Post. Trump’s company tried to sell the lease in the fall of 2019 but was forced to pull the listing when the pandemic hit.
Trump leases the government-owned hotel from the General Services Administration. Democrats criticized the agency for failing to track the income Trump may have received from foreign governments staying at the hotel.
Shortly after the 2016 election, lobbyists representing Saudi Arabia booked roughly 500 rooms at the hotel over the course of three months. Left-leaning watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) reported that more than 130 foreign government officials visited the D.C. hotel during Trump’s presidency, the most among all Trump properties. The Trump Organization has insisted it does not welcome foreign clients and reported donating foreign profits to the Treasury Department.
The day after Trump left office, the Supreme Court dismissed two lawsuits from CREW and Democratic lawmakers alleging Trump violated the Constitution’s emoluments clauses by continuing to profit from his network of properties while president. The high court ruled that the cases were moot with Trump no longer president.
New York prosecutors are probing Trump’s D.C. hotel as part of a wider investigation into the former president’s businesses, The Wall Street Journal reported last week. Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance Jr. reportedly convened a grand jury as part of his investigation into Trump’s businesses, including whether Trump illegally inflated his assets.
Trump called Vance’s investigation “a continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt in American history” in a statement last week.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump Organization. Newmark declined to comment.