Donald Trump is the only sitting President who has used the office for self-enrichment.
While the National Parks are supposedly all closed due to Trump’s shutdown, the National Historic Site clock tower in Trump’s Hotel in the Old Post Office is open and fully staffed. Hotel brochures emphasize the clock tower as one of the hotel’s major attractions.
Candidate Trump promised to report and donate all hotel revenue from foreign sources as a way to avoid violating the Emoluments Clause. President Trump has not done so.
A lawsuit challenging the Trump Organization’s continued operation of the hotel in violation of the Emoluments Clause is in the courts.
Why does anyone tolerate this blatant corruption? How can anyone who tolerates this claim their goal is to “drain the swamp”?
The General Services Administration (GSA), an independent government agency that owns the facility, is providing the funding to keep the tower open.
“The referenced facility remains open as the funds needed to operate the Old Post Office tower are not associated with the current fiscal year’s (FY 2019) appropriations bill.
Yeah… this is one of those times where the headlines don’t really match the story and the criticism that they are going to get for this is rightfully deserved.
There is so much corruption with this administration that there is no need to make up stuff… just focus on the actual corruption and all will be well.
If that’s the case then my original post about the shutdown was wrong. While the funding is legitimate it does seem to violate the spirit of the shutdown in the service of the Trump Organization.
The broader issues about the legitimacy of the Trump Organization retaining control of the hotel and using it as a magnet for foreign business remain in force.
The overall operation of the tower was a part of the government’s lease signed in August 2013, and in response to the ‘Old Post Office Building Redevelopment Act of 2008,’” a GSA spokesperson said in a statement to The Hill on Thursday.
Because the rest of the parks system is closed. But if Trump has a loophole so that he can make money during the shutdown then let everyone pay. This is no different than Trump’s phony bone spur draft dodge. The grift is endless and as Maria Konnikova’s brilliant analysis of con artists demonstrated, the cadre of enablers is essential to the grift.
