Trump earned money from government sources through Washington hotel, Democrats find

Over 11 months while former President Trump was in office, his Washington, D.C., hotel took in some $300,000 from sources inside and outside of government, including tens of thousands in payments from the U.S. Secret Service.

The guest logs, obtained from Trump’s accounting firm by Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, prompted accusations that Trump violated a constitutional prohibition on accepting funds from federal and state governments.

One of the top contributors to that figure, the Secret Service, routinely paid more than other guests at the hotel to house agents who were staying there to protect various Trump family members. In less than a year, the agency paid more than $70,000 to stay at the Washington hotel.

And while Trump’s sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were not charged to stay at the hotel, records show his daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner — both White House staffers — did have to pay to stay at the Trump International Hotel, spending some $6,000 on accommodations. The documents did not specify whether they or the government paid the bill.

“While this is an exceedingly small window into the opaque web of more than 500 corporations, limited liability companies, and trusts that Donald Trump carried with him into the presidency, it is enough to reveal hundreds of unconstitutional and ethically suspect payments he accepted while in office from domestic sources — including a federal agency, numerous federal and state officials, and individuals who sought, and frequently obtained, federal offices as well as presidential pardons from him,” Democrats write in their 58-page report.

Many of the payments accepted by the hotel appear to violate the Domestic Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which stipulates that a president cannot accept payment, outside of his salary, from elsewhere in the federal government or from a state.

“Trump used his hotel to fleece the American taxpayer to line his own pockets in direct violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the panel, said in a statement.

“This is a non-waivable prohibition against exploiting the office to convert and pocket public funds.”

Trump entered office with an unusual pledge to donate his salary. But he also refused to divest from his businesses while serving.

That has sparked significant scrutiny surrounding efforts to curry favor with Trump by staying at his properties, including the Washington hotel.

Reporting from The Washington Post found Trump had earned at least $8 million from taxpayer and political sources toward the tail end of his presidency, with at least $2.5 million coming from the government. 

House Democrats were also able to document significant spending from foreign governments across Trump properties while he was in office, totaling $7.8 million from foreign entities in 20 countries. Those payments appear to violate the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which requires congressional permission to take foreign government money.

Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The Democrats’ latest report comes after they sued Mazars, Trump’s accounting firm, and ultimately won a Supreme Court battle to access the records. The Oversight Committee’s Democrats have accused Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) of releasing Mazars from its obligation to produce documents, limiting insight into Trump’s financial picture. Comer has denied the accusations.

A spokesperson for Republicans on the Oversight Committee called the report “recycled garbage” and said it exposed Democrats’ “hypocrisy as they suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

Friday’s report offers new details about earnings at a hotel that became a top spot for the GOP to see and be seen, reviewing payments made between September 2017 to August 2018, though the records exclude July.

It details how the Trump International Hotel regularly charged the Secret Service more than the government per diem rate to stay there.

The report describes the Secret Service “as a ‘captive customer,’ using the agency as a fabulously wealthy sucker for whom price was no object, and an ATM to fill empty rooms.”

The charges — spread across 200 rooms over about 50 nights — came after the Trump family offered conflicting accounts of how the agency would be billed. While Eric Trump initially said the Secret Service would stay at the property for free, he later said they rented to them “at cost”

But the report details numerous instances in which the Secret Service was billed far more than others staying at the hotel on the same night. In one case they paid $600 per room — three times the government rate — at the same time a Chinese-headquartered coal company paid $338 per room.

Another night the Secret Service paid $1,185 each for two rooms while renting out 100 other rooms at $125 each. Another 100 rooms booked for a conference were rented at $170 each, the report shows.

The documents obtained from Mazars don’t detail who paid the bill, leaving a gap in determining whether Ivanka Trump and Kushner paid out of their own pocket or used government funds.

The Secret Service on Friday noted that they are typically required to pay government rates for rooms when they are available.

“The Secret Service strives to be dedicated stewards of federal dollars. During protective travel it is necessary for some of our personnel to accompany protectees at all times and in all locations to ensure their safety,” an agency spokesman said in an email.

“There are U.S. General Services Administration protocols that govern official travel for all federal employees and we are required by policy to use government rates when they are available to ensure fiscal responsibility.”

But Democrats argue other similar payments at a minimum raise ethical concerns.

At least five people who ultimately secured pardons from Trump stayed in the hotel, spending more than $21,000. The group includes Albert Pirro, the ex-husband of Fox News host Jeanine Pirro, and right-wing commentator Dinesh D’Souza.

And at least 16 people who stayed at the hotel did so while serving as federal or state officials, including eight ambassadors and three judges nominated by him, collectively spending more than $100,000 at the hotel.

In one instance, Kelly Craft, former U.S. ambassador to Canada and then the United Nations, chose to stay at the Trump hotel when in town for a conference organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, paying just less than $1,400 a night for a room there rather than staying at the conference hotel 10 miles away at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Maryland.

“Records released by the Department of State show that although her staff had offered her lodging options much closer to the conference venue than the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Ambassador Craft explicitly chose to stay at former President Trump’s hotel,” the report states.

Two other ambassadors likewise stayed at the hotel during the four-day conference, and the report documents thousands spent while others were serving in the role.

Then-Ambassador to the U.K. Woody Johnson spent more than $5,500 at the hotel. Trump ally and former Ambassador Richard Grenell spent nearly $2,500.

“Given that the State Department would normally pay for the travel expenses and accommodations of ambassadors on official travel, these stays all likely violated the Constitution’s prohibition on domestic emoluments,” the report concluded.

Several people also stayed at the hotel during key points in their nomination process, such as when they were slated to appear before Senate committees, often spending thousands at the hotel before their confirmation.

“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 hand-picked Supreme Court justices,” Raskin said.

“While we still do not know the full extent of the unconstitutional payments Trump pocketed while fleecing American taxpayers, one thing is certain: we must put legal barriers in place now to prevent the kind of rip-off corruption our Founding Fathers so strongly opposed.” 

Updated at 2:15 p.m.