Remember when, before President Trump took office, questions and concerns abounded about his conflicts of interest—that, with business holdings around the world, he could potentially profit from the presidency? Well, according to new financial filings—and surprising exactly no one—it seems he already is. As Trump engages in a disturbing war of words/glorified penis-measuring contest with Kim Jong-un, the Washington Post reports that the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., “has become a financial juggernaut,” according to the story’s reporter, charging more than almost any other D.C. hotel (about $650 per night) and drastically outperforming expectations to earn $19.7 million through April 15. The hotel, which conveniently opened in October of last year mere weeks before the election, has become a sort of de facto clubhouse for Trump administration and GOP officials, conservative-leaning conventions, and visiting heads of state who could be eager to curry favor with the president.
While Trump and his daughter/advisor Ivanka Trump have (supposedly) stepped away from day-to-day operations at the Trump Organization, turning leadership over to large adult sons Donald Jr. and Eric (both of whom are regulars on Fox News, hmm), both the president and Ivanka retain stakes in the new D.C. hotel, ensuring they can, indeed, eventually reap the financial benefits. In fact, according to the new filing, while Ivanka was joining him in greeting the remains of fallen Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens at Dover Air Force Base, she was also quietly earning from the hotel’s $2.4 million in revenue (from its opening through June). Because the gods apparently wanted to make the Trump family’s potential conflicts abundantly clear this week, it was also reported yesterday that Ivanka’s fashion brand—from which she has taken a leave of absence and put into a trust (held in part by her brother-in-law Josh Kushner, whom she can ask about it at her leisure)—will be opening its first stand-alone store at, you’ll never guess, New York’s Trump Tower. What coincidental timing: Just as she becomes a presidential adviser and one of the most visible women on the planet, the brand that bears her name is set to unveil a new store at her father’s once and former headquarters, which happens to be a bigger tourist trap and mob scene than ever before.
So much for separation of Trump and state. Just like pretty much every other governmental norm in the book, the Trump family is flouting conflicts of interests concerns and playing by its own set of rules. The country watched powerlessly as it went down: Instead of fully divesting themselves from their business holdings from the beginning of their White House tenure as per the advice of career government ethics officials, Trump himself simply turned his company over to his sons and gave the country his word that he wouldn’t take on new deals—do what you will with a promise from someone who has lied about taking a gushing call from the head of the Boy Scouts. It is against federal criminal and civil law for Ivanka to take any political action that could benefit her business or finances—but as she holds on to her stake in Trump’s booming hotel in D.C., her mere appearance there for a post-work cosmopolitan could be construed as an endorsement, the same way any celebrity makes any bar cool just by showing up (likewise Trump with his many—many—golf outings to his various hotels and courses). It’s “a highly unethical arrangement,” Rep. Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, has said.
And it’s one not lost on other congressional Democrats. Though it was but a blip in the churning Trump news cycle, nearly 200 Democrats sued the president this past June, alleging that with his ongoing ownership of businesses where foreign diplomats often stay, Trump is violating the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which prohibits presidents from receiving gifts from foreign states without Congress’s consent. President Trump has said that the Trump Organization will donate foreign profits to the U.S. Treasury at the end of the fiscal year. (Sure. Just as soon as the president gets off the phone with the Boy Scouts.) The irony is that Trump whipped up bold campaign promises about revitalizing the struggling working class, but thus far he has succeeded above all in lining his already-deep pockets.
