The Trump family is reportedly exploring a sale of the Trump Hotel in Washington D.C., partly out of concerns raised by ethics watchdogs and emoluments lawsuits that the president is profiting off of his presidency. The Trumps are right to be (belatedly) worried. I know the Trump Hotel D.C. pretty well, and I feel confident saying there is plenty more where those red flags came from.
My daily look at who is patronizing the president’s D.C. hotel started as research in July 2017 for what became one sentence in a 5,500-word feature for Condé Nast Traveler. A few minutes on Instagram revealed that if you had concerns about the U.S. president doubling as a hotelier, they were well-founded. I found photos of Rep. Duncan Hunter (R–Calif.) crashing a Vapor Technology Association’s conference; a guest posing with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, captioning her photo, “He’s still calling the shots”; and the president’s attorney Rudy Giuliani enjoying a cigar in a wine-stained tux the night of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s wedding. Lawmakers, lobbying groups and would-be powerbrokers were taking full advantage of the chance to better their lot by throwing a few bucks the president’s way.
More than two years later, I haven’t stopped scrolling through photos from the Trump Hotel D.C. For two years, I’ve read through every Instagram, Facebook and Twitter post geo-located to the Trump Hotel D.C. I’ve also made several visits and done some more sleuthing around the internet, then published my findings, first on a Twitter thread and now in a newsletterthat comes out five days a week.
View the complete October 25 article by Zach Everson on the Politico website here.