Progressive advocacy group Common Cause filed a complaint Tuesday after the State Department posted promotional materials about President Donald Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club on government websites.
ShareAmerica, part of the State Department’s Bureau of International Information Programs, posted “Mar-a-Lago: The winter White House” on April 4. The article contained a brief history of Trump’s property, including his hosting of diplomatic meetings there. It was later posted on the U.S. Embassy in the United Kingdom’s website and the U.S. Embassy in Albania’s Facebook page, though all posts have since been removed.
“State Department use of resources to promote a private business owned by President Trump constitutes a misuse and abuse of taxpayer dollars,” Common Cause wrote in their complaint. It added later that the post and its promotion by the embassies “clearly warrant investigation.”
The Office of Government Ethics did not immediately respond to TPM’s request for comment. Common Cause’s letter was addressed to that office, as well as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the inspector general of the State Department and the department’s designated agency ethics official, Katherine D. McManus.
The watchdog group American Oversight filed a similar complaint with the State Department inspector general Tuesday, noting that, if the idea to promote Mar-al-Lago originated with White House or State Department political leadership, “this would raise more serious questions about whether ethical rules and possibly prohibitions backed by criminal penalties were violated.”
“This Administration’s refusal to set clear boundaries between the business of the American people and the businesses of Donald Trump has metastasized into the federal agencies,” Common Cause President Karen Hobert Flynn said in a statement accompanying her group’s complaint.
After the “winter White House” post was removed from Share America Monday, ShareAmerica left a note left in its place:
The intention of the article was to inform the public about where the president has been hosting world leaders. We regret any misperception and have removed the post.
I don’t know that this is still the case, but in today’s NYT:
*At an afternoon briefing at the State Department, Mark Toner, a department spokesman, said he had no information about why the article was created and posted by embassies around the world. After a quick check, posts were seen on embassy websites and Facebook pages in Britain and Albania.
And as much as I applaud this group filing a complaint, what good, really, will any of these protests do? There is something fundamentally wrong with our political system when the party in power can protect ANY illegal activity by a POTUS, if they wish to do so. There seem to be no checks and balances that are enforceable. Who will enforce the law if congress won’t (for political reasons)? Huge flaw, Founders!
It’s almost like Trump has…what’s that word…accomplices.
And it turns out it is “productive”, for his pocketbook.
I’m guessing you’re off the White House Christmas list now.
You mean?. . . .No. . . . I’m shocked, shocked I tell you! There are people around the “President” and in Congress who are . . . COMPLICIT? Nooooooo!