THE SELF-DEALING
ADMINISTRATION
BY MICHELLE COTTLE
Ms. Cottle is a member of the editorial
board.
- Oct. 16, 2020
For
anyone attempting to understand Donald Trump’s presidency — to really grasp its
essence — the place to look isn’t the White House or the federal agencies or
even the Supreme Court, with its expanded conservative majority. The lurid
heart of Trumpist Washington lies within the grand, Romanesque-revival building at
the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street, Northwest: the Trump
International Hotel.
Built
at the close of the 19th century, the structure originally served as the city’s
main post office, a towering tribute to public service. Under Mr. Trump, it now
stands as both a monument to and a tool for advancing the endless spectacle of
self-dealing and corruption that has come to define this president, his family
and much of his administration.
On any given day, a glut of lobbyists, lawmakers, foreign agents
and other favor-seekers come through the Trump International, schmoozing
administration bigwigs — on occasion the president himself — and spending gobs
of cash. This ritual not only strokes the president’s ego — What
a swank place you have here, sir! — it enriches his
family business, ownership of which Mr. Trump has refused to divest himself.
We aren’t talking about a few overpriced martinis or breakfast
meetings, but rather serious, high-dollar hobnobbing. In the six months ending
in March 2017, the government of Saudi Arabia spent at least $270,000 at the
hotel. The National Shooting Sports Foundation dropped at least $62,000 there
in 2018, according to a Times report last weekend, which also noted that
the National Automobile Dealers Association has used it as a base for meetings
with policymakers, spending close to $80,000. Groups hosting posh events there
range from the Philippine Embassy to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
to the FLC Group, a Vietnamese conglomerate. (Those who responded to The
Times’s inquiries denied inappropriate motives.)
The
appearance of impropriety is not confined to the family’s Washington hotel.
From Scotland to New Jersey to Florida and beyond, Trump properties have raked
in tens of millions of dollars from those seeking to curry favor with, or at
least express their appreciation for, 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,” the paper reported, concluding that the president has “built a
system of direct presidential influence-peddling unrivaled in modern American
politics.”
Some of
Mr. Trump’s more egregious self-enrichment projects have failed. Most notably
his plan to host this year’s Group
of 7 meeting at the Trump National Doral resort near Miami met
with so much political blowback that he quickly abandoned the idea. But at this
stage, his clan’s routine self-dealing barely raises an eyebrow.
The president’s campaign contributors, large and small, also do
their share to support the first family. This cycle, Trump businesses have
received more than $4 million from the president’s campaign-related committees
and the Republican Party, according to the latest numbers from
the Center for Responsive Politics. This includes $380,000 that
the campaign spent on a “donor retreat” at Mar-a Lago. The campaign also has
been paying around $37,500 a
month for space in Trump Tower in
Manhattan.
Even
Americans who don’t support Mr. Trump are filling his coffers. Each time the
president, a family member or certain top administration officials visit a
Trump property, taxpayers foot the bill for
the security details that must tag along.
On a
2019 trip to Ireland, Vice President Mike Pence stayed at a Trump resort
located on the far side of the country from where his official meetings were
being held. (In addition to whatever taxpayers spent on lodging, the additional
ground transportation cost nearly $600,000.)
The
Washington Post has estimated that
the U.S. government had paid well over $1 million to the president’s company
since he took office in costs associated with the Secret Service. This includes at
least 530 nights at Mar-a-Lago and 950 nights at the president’s club in
Bedminster, N.J.
Taxpayers
are also footing part of the bill for business trips by the Trump kids. In
January 2017, Eric Trump jetted down to Uruguay to check on one of the Trump
Organization’s condo projects, costing Americans around $98,000 in
hotel rooms for the Secret Service and embassy staff members. Two trips the
following month, one by Eric to the Dominican Republic and one by Eric and Don
Jr. to Dubai, ran taxpayers nearly $250,000 for Secret Service expenses such as
airfare, lodging and ground transportation.
In May
of 2018, China awarded Mr. Trump’s golden child, Ivanka,
seven trademarks for her now-defunct lifestyle brand, right around the same
time her father was pledging to save a major Chinese telecommunications
company, ZTE, from going belly up. Ivanka’s office said there was no special
treatment involved.
What’s
good for the Trump family is, apparently, also good for the family of Ms.
Trump’s husband, Jared Kushner, and their business interests. In May 2017, Mr.
Kushner’s sister played up her brother’s position as senior adviser to
the president when pitching some of Kushner Companies’ real estate
developments to prospective Chinese investors through a federal program that
provides fast-track visas to wealthy foreign investors. The project “means a
lot to me and my entire family,” she told them. The company denied any
impropriety.
Also in 2017, both Citigroup and Apollo Global Management, one
of the world’s largest private equity firms, made large loans to Kushner Companies after White
House meetings between Mr. Kushner and top executives from those firms. The
involved parties insisted that the loans had nothing to do with Mr. Kushner’s
position — that, in fact, his family’s business had not even come up in the
discussions. The $184 million loan from Apollo came through in November. The
next month, the U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission dropped an investigation into Apollo. While
there was no indication that the two episodes were related, the timing was a
tad unseemly.
Foreign
entities know a soft target when they see one. In early 2018, The Washington Post reported that
officials in at least four countries — China, Israel, Mexico and the United
Arab Emirates — “have privately discussed ways they can manipulate” Mr. Kushner
“by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial
difficulties and lack of foreign policy experience,” according to U.S.
officials familiar with the related intelligence reports.
In
politics, as in life, the fish rots from the head. And many members of the
administration seem to have embraced the first family’s ethical flexibility. Among the top officials to depart under
allegations of self-dealing or other misuse of taxpayer money were the
secretary of the interior, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, the
head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the secretary of health and
human services and the secretary of veterans affairs. Impressively, Wilbur Ross
remains the commerce secretary, despite reports of multiple sketchy financial dealings.
Forget
Abraham Lincoln’s Team of Rivals. Mr. Trump will be remembered for assembling a
world-class Team of Grifters.
The
Trump campaign world presents its own opportunities for self-enrichment. Before
being ousted as campaign manager this
summer, Brad Parscale had been facing scrutiny both for the campaign’s profligate spending and for the lavish lifestyle he
had adopted since joining Team Trump. Following Mr. Parscale’s demotion, the
campaign began an audit of spending during his tenure, according to Business Insider.
(The campaign has denied that Mr. Parscale is being targeted by the review.)
Mr.
Parscale features prominently in recent allegations that the Trump re-election
effort has been violating
campaign finance laws. In late July, a nonpartisan watchdog group, the Campaign
Legal Center, filed a complaint with
the Federal Election Commission accusing
the campaign and a related fund-raising committee of masking $170 million in
spending to vendors and Trump family members by funneling the payments through
companies run by Mr. Parscale and others formed by the campaign’s lawyers.
Among the outlays in question are fat salaries for Eric Trump’s wife, Lara, and
Don Jr.’s girlfriend, Kimberly Guilfoyle. The campaign has denied any
wrongdoing.
But I
bet you could have guessed that by now.
With so
much grift and graft and self-enrichment swirling about, it’s amusing — and yet
horrifying — to recall that Mr. Trump ran in 2016 as a tough, independent
outsider who would bring in the “best people” to help him clean up political corruption.
Today, as election night looms, the president’s campaign has
reportedly booked the Trump International Hotel in D.C. for a
victory party. Rooms sold out months ago.
Forget
draining the swamp; the president slapped his name on it and began charging
admission.