In the News

Jonathan O'Connell, David A. Fahrenthold, and Joshua Partlow

Congressional Democrats are pressing the General Services Administration for information about President Trump’s D.C. hotel lease, after Trump’s company said it asked the federal government to include it in any accommodations it may make for private tenants during the coronavirus shutdown.

In a letter Thursday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) asked GSA Administrator Emily Murphy to produce the agency’s policies governing possible changes to its lease agreement with the Trump Organization, which rents the D.C. hotel building from the federal agency.

The letter also requested the status of any discussions with the Trump Organization. Democratic leaders on the House Oversight Committee, Reps. Carolyn B. Maloney (N.Y.) and Gerald E. Connolly (Va.), previously called on the GSA not to modify the lease.

The discussions carry “a huge risk for abuse of power and undue influence,” Van Hollen said in an interview. “After all, this is a president who gloats about how he controls every aspect of the federal government and now you have one of his agencies having to make a decision about one of his businesses.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The letter is the latest attempt by congressional Democrats to prevent Trump from using his administration to benefit his business, which he owns but which his adult sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are running while he is in office.

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Trump’s company asks federal government to include it in any rent relief offered to tenants

The renewed oversight comes at time when the Trump Organization, like virtually all hotel and golf companies in the country, has seen business plummet to a small fraction of what it was due to shutdowns from the pandemic, and has been looking to cut costs.

The Trump Organization also recently began conversations with its primary lender, Deutsche Bank, about whether the bank might be providing some kind of alteration or forbearance regarding the company’s loans with the bank, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

“The conversations were informal in nature,” and the president’s company made no formal request for relief, said the person, speaking on the condition of anonymity to freely discuss a private contract. The New York Times previously reported the Deutsche Bank discussions.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment. In an interview earlier this week, Eric Trump said the Trump Organization is not asking to be treated any differently by its partners and lenders than other companies.

“We asked [the GSA] if you are doing something for any of your other properties,” he said. “All we are saying is don’t single us out. Treat us the same as everyone else.”

He said in a statement the conversations with Deutsche Bank were similar in nature.

“These days everybody is working together. Tenants are working with landlords — landlords are working with banks. The whole world is working together as we fight through this pandemic,” he said.

Over the past six weeks, GSA representatives have not responded to repeated inquiries about the status of the lease or payments from the Trump Organization. Officials there did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. The GSA has also repeatedly declined to share detailed information about the president’s lease with Congress.

“I am sure they are all intimidated,” Van Hollen said of GSA officials. “We have seen the president reach deep into the federal government and fire people.”

As the shutdowns from the pandemic continue to stifle travel, the Trump Organization has been looking for additional ways to cut costs. Unlike other large companies, the firm is prevented from applying for relief from the $2 trillion Cares Act stimulus package because of a provision barring family members of the president from benefiting.

Affiliates of the Trump Organization are permitted to apply for different federal relief: a program providing loans to small businesses harmed by coronavirus-related closures. But on Wednesday, in a conference call with the board of directors at Trump’s hotel in Chicago, the hotel’s managing director, Gabriel Constantin, said it had decided not to participate in the Small Business Administration program, which requires companies to keep their employees on staff and loans the companies money to cover payroll for eight weeks.

Constantin told board members that the hotel would still have to pay taxes and benefits and allow vacation to accrue, and that it would ultimately cost more to take the loan than it would to continue the bare-bones operation they are running today, according to an account of the meeting.

The Chicago hotel laid off 70 staff members, according to a filing with the state of Illinois, adding to the more than 2,800 employees the company has laid off or furloughed nationally. Most of the company’s 24 hotels and clubs are closed. Some Trump properties are operating with reduced staffs and accepting golfers or hotel guests.

The latest Trump Organization property to report layoffs is the Trump National Golf Club Jupiter in Florida, which furloughed 92 employees, according to a filing posted this week by the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity.

The Trump Organization’s two golf courses in Scotland and one in Ireland are reportedly participating in government assistance programs that pay a portion of salaries to employees who have lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic.

Eric Trump told USA today in a statement that as with “millions of businesses around the globe, we have been forced by government mandate to temporarily close our hospitality and leisure facilities, and are doing all that we can to retain and support our highly valued staff.”

“The job retention plan created by the U.K. government has nothing to do with the Trump Organization, and does not benefit the business – it is solely about protecting people and their families who would otherwise be out of work,” Trump added.

In the United States, the $500 billion relief package for businesses administered by the Treasury Department prohibits funds going to businesses owned by the president, which blocks the Trump Organization from that portion of the federal relief effort. But in the United Kingdom and Ireland no such restrictions are in place.

A spokesman for the Irish Office of the Revenue Commissioners, which administers the wage subsidy program, said the agency could not legally discuss the identity of recipients, although it will publish a list of participating employers once the program concludes. The UK government’s revenue and customs department also declined to identify participants.

Some critics of the Trump Organization in Scotland have accepted this salary relief as it goes directly to laid off employees.

“The staff involved should be able to benefit from government support like anyone else similarly affected,” said Martin Ford, a member of the Aberdeenshire Council, and a frequent critic of the nearby Trump International Golf Links Scotland. “Whether a business owned by someone who claims to be a multi-billionaire is right to be seeking government funding is another matter.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/23/democrats-press-general-services-administration-over-trump-hotel-payments/