T-Mobile executives stayed at Trump’s hotel while merger that needed administration’s approval was pending

Nine top executives from T-Mobile booked reservations at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. one day after it was announced that T-Mobile’s merger with Sprint would require the administration’s approval.

T-Mobile executives stayed at the hotel for at least 38 nights during 2018, according to lists obtained by The Washington Post. 

The first hotel visit, including nine of T-Mobile’s top executives, was scheduled in April after the $26 billion merger deal with rival Sprint was announced.

{mosads}The merger requires several federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the Federal Communications Commission, to sign off on the deal.

The Post obtained about a dozen 2018 VIP Arrivals lists which are provided to hotel staff when foreign officials, executives and Trump family friends are customers at the hotel. 

The newspaper noted that the data obtained from the lists is incomplete so the number of times T-Mobile executives stayed at the hotel could be higher. 

T-Mobile chief executive John Legere’s visit to the hotel also came after his past criticisms of the president, including a Twitter spat with Trump in April 2015 when the then-business mogul called T-Mobile’s service “terrible.”

.@JohnLegere T-Mobile service is terrible! Why can’t you do something to improve it for your customers. I don’t want it in my buildings.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 12, 2015

“I will obviously leave your hotel right away,” Legere wrote in a now-deleted tweet.

After checking out of the Trump hotel in New York, Legere took to Twitter to mock Trump, according to news coverage at the time.

“I am so happy to wake up in a hotel where every single item isn’t labeled ‘Trump,’” he wrote in another now-deleted tweet.

Legere visited the Trump D.C. hotel lobby at least four times in 2018, often seen wearing attire featuring a large magenta T-Mobile logo, The Post reported.

Legere, who owns T-Mobile shares currently valued at $16.5 million, was even spotted by a Post reporter in the lobby of the D.C. hotel earlier this month.

He told the journalist that he is not expecting special treatment and stays at the Trump hotel for fine service and good security.

“It’s become a place I feel very comfortable,” Legere said, adding that the location of the hotel is convenient for when he is in town for meetings.

Trump’s D.C. is just blocks away from the White House and next to the Justice Department — one of the agencies that needs to approve the merger.

After being approached by the Post reporter in the lobby, Legere tweeted about the great bar at “my current DC hotel” while at the Four Seasons in Georgetown.

“The T-Mobile senior leadership team stays at a variety of hotels in DC and across the country – and they are chosen primarily based on proximity to the meetings being conducted,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told The Hill in a statement.

“We have complete confidence that regulators will assess our merger through an objective and fact-based process and ultimately see how beneficial it will be to consumers in the United States.”

The president has been accused of profiting off the presidency by accepting payments from foreign and domestic governments through the hotel. Several other VIP guests with lobbying interests in Washington have stayed at the hotel, including foreign embassies, religious groups and lobbyists working for the Saudi government.

The president’s son, Eric Trump, took over running the family’s real estate business when his father took office.

He told The Post in an email that the hotel has “absolutely no role in politics.”

Eric Trump added that it came “as no surprise” that Legere, the CEO of a major corporation, would want to stay the hotel.

T-Mobile and the Trump Organization did not dispute the findings of The Post.

Updated at 4:13 p.m.