Carly Sitrin
Vox.com
Originally published August 8, 2017
The Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, has been serving as a White House extension since Donald Trump took office, and experts think this violates several governmental ethics rules.
The Washington Post reported Monday that the Trump International Hotel has played host to countless foreign dignitaries, Republican lawmakers, and powerful actors hoping to hold court with Trump appointees or even the president himself.
Since visitation records at the Trump International Hotel are not made public, the Post sent reporters to the hotel every day in May to try to identify people and organizations using the facilities.
What they found was a revolving door of powerful people holding galas in the hotel’s lavish ballrooms and meeting over expensive cocktails with White House staff at the bar.
They included Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), whom Politico recently called "Putin’s favorite congressman”; Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), who chairs the General Services Administration, the Trump hotel's landlord; and nine other Republican Congress members who all hosted events at the hotel, according to campaign spending disclosures obtained by the Post. Additionally, foreign visitors such as business groups promoting Turkish-American relations and the Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and his wife also rented out rooms.
The article is here.
