Donald Trump has faced repeated questions about his violation of the lease for his downtown D.C. hotel which states that no elected official can benefit in any way from the agreement. Now the government official in charge of the agency that oversees that lease has mysteriously resigned. Jonathan O'Connell writes:
Norman Dong, head of public buildings at the General Services Administration since 2014, is leaving the government in the coming weeks, agency officials and his new employers confirmed Tuesday.
In a draft email to colleagues and staff obtained by The Washington Post, Dong said it had been “an honor and a privilege” to work there. “I am so proud of what we have accomplished as a team,” he said.
The move came as Democrats have ramped up pressure to review Trump's violation of the 60-year lease agreement with the agency. Dong was a civil servant and wasn't in charge of the agency when the original deal was made. It’s unclear exactly why Dong left, but now Democrats are concerned that Trump will appoint new leadership at the agency that could renegotiate the lease so his legal liability disappears.
As Democrats press on Trump's domestic entanglements, ethics groups are putting a spotlight on Trump's conflicts of interest abroad. Tom Hamburger writes:
A trio of watchdog groups has asked the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York to investigate whether President Trump has received payments or other benefits from foreign governments through his business interests in violation of an obscure clause in the U.S. Constitution.
The request, sent by letter Wednesday morning to U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, is a novel strategy by ethics critics who have been pressing Trump to comply with the Constitution’s “emoluments clause,” which prohibits top officials from receiving payments or favors from foreign governments. [...]
The ethics advocates, mostly Democrats, have held news conferences and filed a lawsuit. Now they are asking one of the country’s leading federal prosecutors for help.
Asking a U.S. attorney to investigate a president is unusual to say the least, but Trump's ties are also "unprecedented," as Norman L. Eisen, ethics counsel to President Obama and chairman of CREW noted.
U.S. attorneys are not entirely beyond reach of the president. Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez notably ordered the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 in what was later revealed to be an effort at impeding ongoing investigations. But at the very least, such a move would raise more eyebrows than replacing the head of a relatively obscure agency.