House report: Trump's D.C. hotel hid losses, foreign money when he was president
The Trump International Hotel is seen at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. in Washington, D.C., on July 3.
File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Former President Donald Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel lost tens of millions of dollars during the four years he was in office and tried to hide millions of dollars in payments from foreign governments, according to documents released Friday by Democratic House lawmakers.
The Democratic-controlled House oversight and reform committee said documents released by the General Services Administration also show that Trump wildly overstated the Trump International Hotel's revenue during his tenure in the White House.
The panel said Trump claimed that the hotel made more than $150 million over that period when it actually lost $70 million.
Committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., said in a letter to the GSA that the information raises "troubling" concerns about the hotel, which is housed in a historic building that Trump leases from the federal government.
The 27-page letter details how Trump's business failed to disclose the losses and debts in public filings and lease documents and highlights conflicts of interest while Trump was president.
"The documents provided by GSA raise new and troubling questions about former
President Trump's lease with GSA and the agency's ability to manage the former president's conflicts of interest during his term in office when he was effectively on both sides of the contract, as landlord and tenant," they said in the letter.
Maloney and Connolly said due to the hotel's direct connection to Trump, foreign and domestic interests spent money there as a way to curry favor with the American president.
Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Former President Donald Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel lost tens of millions of dollars during the four years he was in office and tried to hide millions of dollars in payments from foreign governments, according to documents released Friday by Democratic House lawmakers.
The Democratic-controlled House oversight and reform committee said documents released by the General Services Administration also show that Trump wildly overstated the Trump International Hotel's revenue during his tenure in the White House.
The panel said Trump claimed that the hotel made more than $150 million over that period when it actually lost $70 million.
Committee Chair Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., said in a letter to the GSA that the information raises "troubling" concerns about the hotel, which is housed in a historic building that Trump leases from the federal government.
The 27-page letter details how Trump's business failed to disclose the losses and debts in public filings and lease documents and highlights conflicts of interest while Trump was president.
"The documents provided by GSA raise new and troubling questions about former
Maloney and Connolly said due to the hotel's direct connection to Trump, foreign and domestic interests spent money there as a way to curry favor with the American president.
They said, for example, the documents show that Deutsche Bank allowed Trump in 2018 to delay making principal payments on the hotel for six years.
"Without this deferral, the hotel may have needed to pay tens of millions of additional dollars to Deutsche Bank at a time when it was already facing steep losses," Maloney and Connolly said in their letter.
"Trump did not publicly disclose this significant benefit from a foreign bank while he was president."
The two also said foreign governments paid more than $3.7 million at the hotel between 2017 and 2021.
"Internal Trump Organization documents raise questions about how foreign government payments were accounted for by the Trump Hotel," they added. "Rather than simply transfer the profits ... to the Trump Hotel's parent companies for payment to the U.S. Treasury, the Trump Hotel used the money to offset Trump Organization intra-company loans."
The committee also said the documents show that Trump accepted millions of dollars in undisclosed emoluments, hid hundreds of millions in debts from the GSA when his company bid on the hotel's building, and "made it impossible for GSA to properly enforce the lease's conflict-of-interest restrictions by engaging in opaque transactions with other affiliated entities."
"This new evidence raises many questions that require further investigation and action by the committee," Maloney and Connolly said.
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to the panel's report Friday.
Trump hotel lost $70M despite millions in foreign business
By BERNARD CONDON
This March 11, 2019 file photo, shows the north entrance of the Trump International in Washington. Former President Donald Trump's company lost more than $70 million operating his Washington D.C. hotel while in office, forcing him at one point get a reprieve from a major bank on payments on a loan, according to documents released Friday, Oct. 8, 2021, by a House committee investigating his business.
"Internal Trump Organization documents raise questions about how foreign government payments were accounted for by the Trump Hotel," they added. "Rather than simply transfer the profits ... to the Trump Hotel's parent companies for payment to the U.S. Treasury, the Trump Hotel used the money to offset Trump Organization intra-company loans."
The committee also said the documents show that Trump accepted millions of dollars in undisclosed emoluments, hid hundreds of millions in debts from the GSA when his company bid on the hotel's building, and "made it impossible for GSA to properly enforce the lease's conflict-of-interest restrictions by engaging in opaque transactions with other affiliated entities."
"This new evidence raises many questions that require further investigation and action by the committee," Maloney and Connolly said.
The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to the panel's report Friday.
Trump hotel lost $70M despite millions in foreign business
By BERNARD CONDON
This March 11, 2019 file photo, shows the north entrance of the Trump International in Washington. Former President Donald Trump's company lost more than $70 million operating his Washington D.C. hotel while in office, forcing him at one point get a reprieve from a major bank on payments on a loan, according to documents released Friday, Oct. 8, 2021, by a House committee investigating his business.
(AP Photo/Mark Tenally, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s company lost more than $70 million on his Washington, D.C., hotel during his four years in office despite taking in millions from foreign governments, according to documents released Friday by a congressional committee investigating his business.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said the luxury hotel just a few blocks from the White House was struggling so badly that the Trump Organization had to inject $27 million from other parts of its business and got preferential treatment from a major lender to delay payments on a $170 million loan.
The committee said the losses came despite an estimated $3.7 million in revenue from foreign governments, business that ethics experts say Trump should have refused because it posed conflicts of interest with his role as president.
The Trump Organization said in a statement that the findings of the Democrat-led committee were misleading and false, and it did not receive any special treatment from a lender.
“This report is nothing more than continued political harassment in a desperate attempt to mislead the American public and defame Trump in pursuit of their own agenda,” the company said.
The documents from the committee, the first public disclosure of audited financial statements from the hotel, show steep losses despite a brisk business from lobbyists, businesses and Republican groups while Trump was in office.
The alleged loan delay by Deutsche Bank to the president was an “undisclosed preferential treatment” that should have been reported by the president because the bank has substantial business in the U.S., the committee said in a letter to the General Services Administration, the federal agency overseeing the hotel. The hotel is leased by the federal government to the Trump Organization.
“The documents ... raise new and troubling questions about former President Trump’s lease with GSA and the agency’s ability to manage the former president’s conflicts of interest during his term in office when he was effectively on both sides of the contract, as landlord and tenant,” the committee’s Democratic co-chairs, Carolyn Maloney of New York and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, wrote in their letter.
The GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For its part, Deutsche Bank said in a statement that the committee made “several inaccurate statements” about the loan agreement but declined to elaborate, citing loan privacy concerns.
The committee’s letter to the GSA said the hotel losses contradict the “exaggerated image of financial success” that the president was portraying in the personal financial disclosure reports he sent to a federal ethics agency each year. But those reports require only revenue to be disclosed, not profits, an apples-to-oranges comparison that one of Trump’s sons seized upon in a tweet blasting the committee.
“Please learn the difference between Gross Revenue and Net Profit before writing us long letters,” Eric Trump wrote, calling the committee “incompetent.”
Trump’s company has been trying to sell the 263-room hotel since the fall of 2019 but has struggled to find buyers during the coronavirus pandemic at a reported initial asking price of more than $500 million.
The head of government ethics watchdog CREW said the losses shed new light on Trump’s refusal to ban foreign governments from patronizing his business.
“The only lifeline was the corrupt business coming from people and organizations and governments seeking to influence him,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “His use of the presidency to get business was absolutely essential to stemming the flow of losses.”
To allay concerns about conflict of interest, Trump promised to send payments to the U.S. Treasury on foreign government earnings from his business annually. The committee said the Washington hotel payments under this deal totaled more than $350,000 in the first three years of his presidency. Critics of the voluntary deal say Trump’s definition of earnings is unclear and gave the president plenty of room to lowball the figure.
Though the Washington hotel was hurt badly by pandemic-related shutdowns last year, the audited financial statements released by the committee show it was suffering every year it was open before that, too. It lost a nearly $50 million in the first three years of his presidency, then $22 million last year.
NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump’s company lost more than $70 million on his Washington, D.C., hotel during his four years in office despite taking in millions from foreign governments, according to documents released Friday by a congressional committee investigating his business.
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform said the luxury hotel just a few blocks from the White House was struggling so badly that the Trump Organization had to inject $27 million from other parts of its business and got preferential treatment from a major lender to delay payments on a $170 million loan.
The committee said the losses came despite an estimated $3.7 million in revenue from foreign governments, business that ethics experts say Trump should have refused because it posed conflicts of interest with his role as president.
The Trump Organization said in a statement that the findings of the Democrat-led committee were misleading and false, and it did not receive any special treatment from a lender.
“This report is nothing more than continued political harassment in a desperate attempt to mislead the American public and defame Trump in pursuit of their own agenda,” the company said.
The documents from the committee, the first public disclosure of audited financial statements from the hotel, show steep losses despite a brisk business from lobbyists, businesses and Republican groups while Trump was in office.
The alleged loan delay by Deutsche Bank to the president was an “undisclosed preferential treatment” that should have been reported by the president because the bank has substantial business in the U.S., the committee said in a letter to the General Services Administration, the federal agency overseeing the hotel. The hotel is leased by the federal government to the Trump Organization.
“The documents ... raise new and troubling questions about former President Trump’s lease with GSA and the agency’s ability to manage the former president’s conflicts of interest during his term in office when he was effectively on both sides of the contract, as landlord and tenant,” the committee’s Democratic co-chairs, Carolyn Maloney of New York and Gerald Connolly of Virginia, wrote in their letter.
The GSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For its part, Deutsche Bank said in a statement that the committee made “several inaccurate statements” about the loan agreement but declined to elaborate, citing loan privacy concerns.
The committee’s letter to the GSA said the hotel losses contradict the “exaggerated image of financial success” that the president was portraying in the personal financial disclosure reports he sent to a federal ethics agency each year. But those reports require only revenue to be disclosed, not profits, an apples-to-oranges comparison that one of Trump’s sons seized upon in a tweet blasting the committee.
“Please learn the difference between Gross Revenue and Net Profit before writing us long letters,” Eric Trump wrote, calling the committee “incompetent.”
Trump’s company has been trying to sell the 263-room hotel since the fall of 2019 but has struggled to find buyers during the coronavirus pandemic at a reported initial asking price of more than $500 million.
The head of government ethics watchdog CREW said the losses shed new light on Trump’s refusal to ban foreign governments from patronizing his business.
“The only lifeline was the corrupt business coming from people and organizations and governments seeking to influence him,” said Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “His use of the presidency to get business was absolutely essential to stemming the flow of losses.”
To allay concerns about conflict of interest, Trump promised to send payments to the U.S. Treasury on foreign government earnings from his business annually. The committee said the Washington hotel payments under this deal totaled more than $350,000 in the first three years of his presidency. Critics of the voluntary deal say Trump’s definition of earnings is unclear and gave the president plenty of room to lowball the figure.
Though the Washington hotel was hurt badly by pandemic-related shutdowns last year, the audited financial statements released by the committee show it was suffering every year it was open before that, too. It lost a nearly $50 million in the first three years of his presidency, then $22 million last year.
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