NY attorney general subpoenas GSA for records on Trump hotel deal: report

by Cameron Jenkins - 02/01/22 11:14 AM ET

New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) subpoenaed the General Services Administration (GSA) this week, requesting records concerning how the agency chose former President Trump’s business to lease the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion in Washington, D.C., for his hotel, The Washington Post reported.

James’s inquiry, which is part of a probe into Trump’s business, is seeking information about whether Trump secured the lease after exaggerating his net worth, two people familiar with the matter told the Post on the condition of anonymity.

Included among the documents that James requested was reportedly a scorecard the GSA used to rank Trump’s bid against other developers who hoped to lease and redevelop the historic building. According to the Post, the information included in that record could aid James’s effort to establish a pattern of the former president presenting his business partners, insurers and banks with false information in order to obtain other deals and loans, the Post noted.

The Hill has reached out to James’s office for comment.

Trump was selected by the GSA for the project in 2012 and opened the hotel in 2016. He did not sell his stake in the lease following his election, despite calls from Democrats to avoid conflicts of interest, the Post noted.

He is now aiming to sell his lease on the hotel, which could earn his business nearly $100 million in profits, according to the Post.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee in October raised similar concerns regarding whether Trump misled the GSA in the process of making the deal. At the time, committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Government Operations Subcommittee Chairman Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) contacted GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan and alleged that Trump “concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts from GSA when bidding on the Old Post Office Building lease,” the Post reported.

Maloney and Connolly also called for an investigation into the deal, according to the news outlet.

In a recent interview, Connolly rejected the idea that the issue should be let go.

“If [Trump] walks away from this laughing all the way to the bank with a $100 million profit, we will have debased the whole concept of enforcing conflict of interests laws and ethics,” he said, according to the Post.

–Updated at 12:28 p.m.