Foreign Business Couldn't Keep Trump's Hotel in the Black

Documents released Friday show the Trump International Hotel in Washington lost millions while Donald Trump was president, though he claimed it was profitable, prompting a House panel to ask for answers from the GSA. The hotel lost more than $70 million during Trump's term, the Washington Post reports, despite the revenue from doing business with foreign governments. The Democratic leaders of the House Oversight committee told the GSA director Friday that the files raise questions about "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."

Trump leases the place from the General Services Administration, and the deal has been a point of contention since he took office. Customers included top Republicans, fundraisers, and lobbyists foreign and domestic. The Constitution bars presidents from accepting gifts from other nations; the Supreme Court dismissed a pair of lawsuits on the issue as no longer relevant as Trump was leaving office. Trump broke accepted practice by putting assets in a trust run by his sons when he became president, per CNN, and continuing to profit from them. Democratic Reps. Carolyn Maloney and Gerry Connolly want the GSA to turn over more documents, especially concerning foreign revenue.

They also said Deutsche Bank gave Trump preferential treatment in letting him defer payments on the principal of a $170 million hotel construction loan, per CNN. The loan terms were revised to allow that in 2018. Hotel payments from foreign governments totaled $3.7 million while Trump was in office, the committee said. The committee said financial disclosures show Trump collected more than $156 million in income from the Pennsylvania Avenue hotel from 2016 to 2020, though it was losing money.

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Without more documents, the lawmakers told the GSA, "there is no way for anyone examining these records to understand why millions of dollars flowed between the Trump Hotel and President Trump’s other businesses," per the Hill. There was no immediate comment Friday from the GSA, the Trump Organization, or Deutsche Bank. In the past, Trump has called scrutiny of his hotel's finances politically motivated. Trump has put his lease on the hotel on the market but hasn't sold it yet. (More Donald Trump stories.)