Agency managing Trump’s DC hotel lease failed to probe ethical conflicts: report

Several ethical conflicts that concerned former President Trump’s decision not to financially divest from Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. were not addressed by the General Services Administration, which manages the hotel’s government lease, a House committee report found.

A report by the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee obtained by The Hill and first reported by NBC News said that “President Trump’s refusal to fully divest from his commercial interests in the Trump International Hotel created multiple conflicts of interest during his presidency that both he and GSA refused to properly address.”

The report found, for example, that the GSA did not examine over $350,000 that the hotel received between 2017 and 2019 from officials of foreign governments. 

The report said that the agency “washed its hands of any responsibility” to make sure the constitutional emoluments clauses were honored — clauses that seek to avoid foreign corruption and retain the independence of the president.

The agency also failed to look into over $75 million that was loaned by the former president and three of his children in order to keep the hotel afloat as it grappled with financial issues, according to the House committee report.

“The hotel operated at a loss in 33 out of the 53 months,” according to the report, citing a time period between September 2016 and January 2021.

“This report brings to light GSA’s flagrant mismanagement of the Old Post Office lease and its attempt to duck its responsibility to support and defend the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clauses. It also details GSA’s failure to put important ethical guardrails and OIG recommendations in place that would have helped keep conflicts of interest at bay,”  House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chair Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said in a statement.

The news comes after the GSA was officially notified by the Trump Organization about its intent to sell its D.C. hotel. Miami-based investment firm CGI Merchant Group has reportedly reached a $375 million deal to lease out the hotel. 

The Hill has reached out the GSA and a Trump spokesperson for comment.

Updated at 11:01 a.m.