Report: Foreign Governments Spent Over $750k at Trump Hotel
According to documents released by the US House Oversight Committee on Monday, officials from six foreign governments spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on stays at former Pres. Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington while allegedly lobbying the US government on foreign relations matters.
Facts
- According to documents released by the US House Oversight Committee on Monday, officials from six foreign governments spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on stays at former Pres. Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington while allegedly lobbying the US government on foreign relations matters.
- According to the documents — obtained by the committee from Mazars USA, Trump’s former accounting firm — officials from China, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates spent upwards of $750k from the end of 2017 through mid-2018.
- One of the visits in question was from Najib Razak, then PM of Malaysia. Razak reportedly spent more than 250k in September 2017 while he and his family were the subject of a US Dept. of Justice money laundering probe. He was later arrested and charged with abuse of power and other crimes by Malaysian authorities.
- In a letter to the National Archives and Records Admin. (NARA), committee chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) requested presidential records related to possible quid pro quo between foreign governments and the Trump administration. NARA signaled its intent to comply.
- Trump’s son Eric issued a statement saying that the Trump Organization went to “tremendous lengths” to avoid a conflict of interest because of “the respect we have towards the office of the presidency.” The company sold the hotel in May 2022.
Sources: Forbes, Independent, NBC, and Breitbart.
Narratives
- Democratic narrative, as provided by CNN. This latest development confirms what was already known: Trump’s hotel was a magnet for lobbyists, Republicans, and foreign dignitaries hoping to get in the then-president’s good graces. These documents detail the specific amount each foreign country used to sway Trump and the US government and how egregiously Trump violated the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
- Pro-Trump narrative, as provided by New York Post. This is just the latest front in the witch hunt against Trump. While the documents indeed show foreign expenditures at Trump's hotel, they fail to provide evidence that Trump was even aware of them or that the spending directly influenced US foreign policy. Trump's opposition is grasping at straws.
