The Trump International Hotel received about $270,000 from a lobbying campaign tied to the government of Saudi Arabia last year, according to a filing submitted to the Justice Department last week.
The filing from the MSLGroup, a public relations firm, shows that the group spent about $270,000 at the Trump International Hotel while conducting lobbying efforts on behalf of the Saudi Arabian government. MSLGroup was helping Saudi Arabia with several lobbying efforts, including opposing the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which allows the families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia.
An executive with MSLGroup, Michael Petruzzello, told the Wall Street Journal that the payments to the Trump hotel were made by a subcontractor, which was reimbursed by Saudi Arabia. The payments were part of a campaign to bring veterans to Capitol Hill to lobby against JASTA, Petruzzello told the Wall Street Journal. He said that the payments were made between November 2016 and February 2017, and were made for the most part before Trump took office.
The Trump Organization told the Wall Street Journal’s Rebecca Ballhaus that it would transfer profits from the payments linked to Saudi Arabia to the U.S. Treasury Department by the end of the year.
Update: Trump Org says it'll transfer profits from Saudi payments to Treasury at end of year. No answer on how it'll disclose that transfer. https://t.co/5q8aQdfyEX
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) June 6, 2017
A watchdog group filed a lawsuit against Trump in January, arguing that by owning the hotel, he is violating the Emolument’s Clause of the constitution, which prohibits government officials from accepting payments from foreign governments. And Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, has said that the Trump Organization has not been actively tracking payments from foreign governments.
Lol…this will turn out to be chump change when the real depths of his graft and kickbacks are exposed…he will never voluntarily provide his tax returns but if we ever get to see them, the depths of malfeasance will be obvious.
Transfer the money to the federal government “at the end of the year” - really? What’s the wait for? Can’t that yuuuuuge and monetarily successful organization do that right now?
On the other hand, maybe they’re just signaling that they will pay that money eventually, when they have to - as part of their tax bill.
The check is in the mail.
The organization promised to “donate” the “profits” to the Treasury, so assuming the Treasury is set up to receive gifts (where does one send the check???), presumably they will first do the creative accounting required to identify the profits, of which there may not be any at all after expenses.
I used to have a .jpg of the card Comrade Cockholster’s DC hotel gives guests so they can voluntarily note if they were representing foreign governments during their stay.
Do you suppose the Saudi’s checked the box that indicated they were “staying in the hotel operated by POTUS to gain additional favor in their lobbying efforts of POTUS and his family on behalf of ‘Wahhabi Central’”? If not, perhaps they’ll do it retroactively, like the SF 86 Form for Security Clearance For Government Employment that Sessions et al did.
On the other hand, they needn’t fill it out at all as it’s all voluntary. Besides, the POTUS has already assured us that he has no conflicts of interest; if you can’t trust POTUS and the Saudis, who can you trust?
In other news, if anyone is interested in keeping score The Atlantic ran a comprehensive article on POTUS’s conflicts of interest yesterday. (Spoiler alert: It’s very, very, very long.)