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You can still see the faint outline of Trump’s name on the facade of Washington, D.C.’s Old Post Office, which from the year of the former president’s election to this May was home to the Trump International Hotel. Sitting just down the street from the White House, it was the location where, according to accounting documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee, foreign dignitaries and governments paid upwards of $10,000 a night to stay while Trump was in office.
The records show that in the first two years of Trump’s presidency, six foreign governments spent a combined total of over $700,000 at the Trump Organization-owned hotel. This includes $280,000 by Qatar, $250,000 by Malaysia, $90,000 by Saudi Arabia, and $74,000 by the United Arab Emirates. The eye-popping tabs often coincide with major diplomatic and foreign policy events.
The House Oversight Committee has been probing the Trump Organization’s financial dealings during Trump’s tenure, and any conflicts of interest that may have arisen. “These documents sharply call into question the extent to which President Trump was guided by his personal financial interest while in office rather than the best interests of the American people,” Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote in a statement released Monday.
The most prolific spender at 1100 Pennsylvania Ave. (at least according to these documents) was Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, whose delegation spent a monstrous sum of $259,724 during an eight-day visit to D.C. that included ponying up for the $10,000-a-night presidential suite. At the time of his visit, Razak was implicated in a Justice Department embezzlement investigation. Charges were ultimately brought against members of Razak’s circle, but not Razak himself.
The coincidental spending doesn’t end there. During the 2017-2018 Qatari diplomatic crisis, which resulted in Saudi Arabia and the UAE imposing a blockade on the nation, all three parties made financial transactions with the hotel while simultaneously lobbying the Trump administration for support. The Saudi Defense Ministry spent $85,961 during a critical week in March 2018 where, according to Maloney, “Saudi and Emirati officials had been reportedly lobbying President Trump to remove [Secretary of State Rex Tillerson] for his role in intervening to stop a Saudi invasion of Qatar the previous summer.” Tillerson was fired by Trump on March 13.
Maloney noted in a letter to the National Archives requesting additional documents that “between January and early March 2018, the Sheikh Al Thani Family, the ruling family of Qatar, booked an extended stay at the Trump Hotel, spending over $300,000 in the lead up to a summit between Trump and Emir Tamim bin Hamad.
Similar instances of coincidental spending involve Turkish lobbying and advocacy groups, which combined to spend a total of $86,000 at the hotel while the DOJ was investigating the state-owned Turkish bank Halkbank. Fortuitously, then-Attorney General Bill Barr stepped in and negotiated an indictment-free settlement.
The investigation by the House Oversight Committee is one of several financial probes the former president and the Trump Organization are currently struggling to outrun. The House Ways and Means Committee won a major legal victory in August regarding their efforts to obtain Trump’s tax returns. New York Attorney General Letitia James has filed a lawsuit against Trump and three of his adult children alleging financial fraud committed under the umbrella of the Trump organization.
The Trump Organization finalized the sale of the hotel to CGI Merchant Group in May 2022. While Trump’s name may have been chiseled off the facade, it remains a stubborn monument to the excesses of his presidency.
