Officials from six nations spent more than $750,000 at former President Donald J. Trump’s hotel in Washington when they were seeking to influence his administration, renting rooms for more than $10,000 per night, according to documents that his former accounting firm turned over to Congress.
The governments of Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and China spent more money than previously known at the Trump International Hotel at crucial times in 2017 and 2018 for those countries’ relations with the United States, according to the documents, which were obtained by the House Oversight Committee and released on Monday.
The officials spent freely at the hotel, the records show. The Malaysian prime minister, for instance, hired a $1,500 personal trainer during his stay at the Trump hotel in 2017. The Saudi Ministry of Defense rented several suites, costing $10,500 each, with rooms reserved under the name “His Excellency.” Qatari officials spent more than $300,000 there in the weeks leading up to a meeting with Mr. Trump in 2018.
The documents build on the public record of how Mr. Trump’s hotel brought in millions during his presidency from foreign governments. The Oversight Committee has previously estimated that the hotel received more than $3.75 million from foreign governments from 2017 to 2020, raising concerns about possible violations of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause.
Remember that the Clinton Foundation collected foreign money for their international charity and that was considered by everyone to be such a horrible conflict of interest that they had to shut it down completely. There was never any allegation that the Clintons kept the money for themselves.
But this? Perfectly fine.
In April 2017, Press Secretary Sean Spicer took the podium in the White House briefing room and announced that the president was donating his first-quarter salary to the National Park Service. With a serious look on his face, Spicer pulled out an oversize check with an oversize signature. It was the first of several checks that Donald Trump signed while in office, handing over his $400,000 salary in exchange for good publicity.
That was pocket change for Trump. His real money came from the business he refused to divest, not from his government salary. An analysis of documents, some of which only became public in recent weeks, shows just how much Trump’s businesses raked in while he was in office. Dig through everything—including property records, ethics disclosures, debt documents and securities filings—and you’ll find about $2.4 billion of revenue from January 2017 to December 2020.
Not bad. All that money flowing directly into his pockets and no conflicts of interest at all, isn’t that nice?