Patronizing Trump Properties

The Foreign Emoluments Clause (art. I, § 9, cl. 8): “[N]o Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”

An important investigative report from NYT:

Federal tax-return data for Mr. Trump and his business empire, which was disclosed by The New York Times last month, showed that even as he leveraged his image as a successful businessman to win the presidency, large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades.

Federal tax-return data for Mr. Trump and his business empire, which was disclosed by The New York Times last month, showed that even as he leveraged his image as a successful businessman to win the presidency, large swaths of his real estate holdings were under financial stress, racking up losses over the preceding decades.

But once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration. Nearly a quarter of those patrons have not been previously reported.

But once Mr. Trump was in the White House, his family business discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by The Times found over 200 companies, special-interest groups and foreign governments that patronized Mr. Trump’s properties while reaping benefits from him and his administration. Nearly a quarter of those patrons have not been previously reported.

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THE WEEK OF Mr. Trump’s inauguration, a Romanian politician named Liviu Dragnea stopped by the Trump hotel for dinner and a drink. Back home, Mr. Dragnea — head of the Social Democratic Party — had been banned from higher office and was about to stand trial on corruption charges. But in Washington, he would shake hands with the president-elect.

That evening, as Mr. Trump and his entourage passed through the hotel, Mr. Dragnea and his country’s prime minister seized their chance. Mr. Dragnea secured what he later misleadingly portrayed as an intimate dinner, the kind of meeting that might take months or years to arrange, even for heads of state. Later, he posted photos taken with Mr. Trump to his Facebook page, suggesting he had extracted a promise of closer ties between their two countries.

For foreign politicians on the lower rungs of Washington’s diplomatic ladder, even a chance meeting with the American president can be a significant propaganda victory. Representatives of at least 33 foreign countries have passed through the Washington hotel, according to the journalist Zach Everson’s newsletter 1100 Pennsylvania, which chronicles comings and goings there.

“The fact that they could get a meeting, have a handshake and take a picture that gets distributed far and wide back home — that is gold to them,” said Alan M. Madison, who has represented foreign governments and political parties in Washington, including Mr. Dragnea’s Social Democrats. “They’ll almost do anything to achieve that.”

Some embassies moved their annual galas or independence commemorations to the hotel. “Since several other embassies have also held their national day celebrations at the Trump hotel which were well attended,” the Philippine ambassador explained in The Philippine Star, “I decided — why not do it there, too.”

When the prime minister of the Serbian enclave in Bosnia, Zeljka Cvijanovic, stopped at the hotel and met Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she issued a news release almost suggestive of a state function. “On the first day of her visit to Washington, Prime Minister Cvijanovic met with the closest associates of the US President,” it proclaimed.

The Times identified more than 20 foreign officials, politicians and businesses or groups closely affiliated with governments abroad that held events at his properties or paid for rooms there.