In the wake of the Flynn debacle people have once again been prattling on about the "big one" i.e. the impeachable offense that Trump finally commits, the faux pas that actually brings him down -- and like the novel "The Purloined Letter," the impeachable offense has been sitting out in plain sight this entire time. Rolling Stone just published: Why Won't the Feds Go After Trump for His Huge Breach of Contract?
“The [General Services Administration] which oversees management of some 8,300 federal buildings, including the Old Post Office, has known for months it would be at the center of the first big fight over President Trump's conflicts of interest and violation of the Constitution – and it has quietly, assiduously avoided doing anything about it.
The hotel has emerged as the most emblematic of Trump's knotted, worldwide web of business conflicts. Though Trump announced last week that he was handing over management of the Trump International Hotel to his son, Don Jr., the president still owns the business. The hotel actively caters to foreign diplomats – and the Constitution explicitly prohibits presidents from accepting money from foreign governments. It's an impeachable offense.
But the primary issue for the GSA is that Trump is presently in violation of his lease, which specifically forbids any government employee from being a lessee. The cut-and-dry language of the contract Trump signed in 2013, when he beat out nine other companies' bids to refurbish the Old Post Office building, states that "[n]o … elected official of the Government of the United States ... shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom."
What makes this totally egregious is that the GSA has such an open and shut case. The language of the statute is plain and the language of the lease is equally plain. Trump is personally named on the lease. He’s the owner of the hotel and ownership is key. Management issues are secondary. The GSA has dragged its heels on this matter. It had planned some kind of action, apparently, because it was scheduled to release a statement regarding the lease on inauguration day and then it did not. Almost a month later nothing still has been done to address this matter, and delay is not making things better. Steven Schooner, a law professor at George Washington University, said this:
It[’s] only going to get more difficult with time. GSA should have terminated the lease back in November, immediately after the election, or soon after, once it became clear that the Trump organization had no plans to work out a conflict mitigation strategy with GSA. Now, if and when GSA finally decides to act, it’s buying a lawsuit with the President, the President’s family, and the President’s family business. What a debacle…There’s no way this ends well.
Meantime, while GSA does nothing, Trump’s use of public office for personal, family, and business gain continues apace. Trump not only caters to foreign diplomats he has a Director of Diplomatic Sales at the hotel -- as do the other Washington D.C. hotels, only they're not owned by a president in violation of the emoluments clause. One would think that the Trump hotel would at least have softpedaled its obvious interest in gaining the diplomatic dollar but that has not been the case. And a lot of diplomats apparently feel that it is in their best interests to stay at Trump's hotel and spend money. More from Rolling Stone:
"We now have empirical information – we have facts – that show that foreign governments, lobbying firms and special-interest groups plan to spend money lavishly in Trump's hotels, paying premium prices, because the president cares about it, he appreciates their patronage and they believe it will curry favor with the president of the United States," Schooner says. "And that puts President Trump in direct violation of the emoluments clause of the U.S. Constitution."
Trump's tax lawyer has argued that paying for a hotel room constitutes an acceptable value-for-value transaction, rather than a gift. Schooner doesn't buy it. "Have you had a hotel reservation that you forgot to cancel? You know what happens. You pay for it anyway," he says. "If I wanted to give $100,000 to a member of Congress, I have to report that; that's going to be a public document. If I want to give $100,000 to the Trumps, I call [Trump's hotel] up, I schedule an event, I give them a non-refundable deposit and then I don't hold the event."
"As long as people are staying in that hotel to curry favor with the president, we've got a problem," Schooner says. The idea that Trump would donate the hotel's profits to the Treasury – another idea his tax lawyer has floated – doesn't change that calculus. "Imagine a month where there's very, very low occupancy in the hotel. And the government of Kuwait comes in and holds a big fancy reception in there. There's not profit that month. But the Trump family lost less money that month. That's a benefit – that's emolument," he says.
Some hotels gain a reputation over the years as haunted because of the memorable personalities who stayed there. Supposedly some life force of the personalities and the incidents of their lives lingers. The Rooseveldt Hotel in Los Angeles is one such place. Many people to this day will tell you of glassware flying off of the shelves in the bar, of an apparition of Marilyn Monroe coalescing dimly in an upstairs hall mirror and of the mournful sound of a bugle being played in the wee hours, ostensibly by Montgomery Cliff. As new as it is, the Trump International has seen its moments of tragedy and comedy. This sobering tale took place on January 17th outside the Trump International:
Shortly after 9:20 p.m. on a foggy evening three days before Donald Trump's inauguration, a soft-spoken man with a sandy goatee and clear plastic glasses set himself on fire outside 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, the century-old Romanesque Revival that was once Washington, D.C.'s first post office and is now home to the Trump International Hotel.
His clothes were still smoldering in the middle of the street as the man, who wouldn't give his name, told reporters he'd lit himself aflame to protest "the fact that we've elected somebody who is completely incapable of respecting the Constitution of the United States."
180 degrees opposite this tragedy is the farce that overtook the hotel back in mid-September when Trump had a press conference there, ostensibly to explain himself on the five year long birther lie. Trump said eight words on the topic, “Barack Obama was born in the United States,” and then walked off the stage — which proceeded to collapse minutes later. From Crooks & Liars, September 14, 2016:
"As press was ushered into the renovated building—passing the unironically titled “PRESIDENTIAL BALLROOM”—the smell of white paint was still thick, and contractors wearing hard hats were rushing about the lobby. The ground-level bar was mercifully open and serving Trump-brand sparkling wine, as the mounted TV screens played promos for Melissa Joan Hart’s Christian film God’s Not Dead 2. Every item of decor, from the turquoise and faux-gold armchairs to the candy dishes made out of fake dimes and nickels, was handpicked by Ivanka Trump with the help of design firm HBA.
The overall aesthetic is somewhere between real, inoffensive luxury and a Red Roof Inn patron’s conception of what a stylish, upper-echelon hotel must be. Just like every other Trump hotel, it is, in its own way, a perfect metaphor for the man himself.
If you are as skeptical as this writer, take into account this unusual aspect of the bar at the hotel: You can purchase wine by the spoonful. The Washingtonian explains:
“Trump International Hotel Director of Food & Beverage Daniel Mahdavian dons white gloves to pour wine by the spoon. He lays down a silver tray lined with a cloth napkin, followed by one-ounce crystal vessels. They are tiny—almost resembling the soup spoons you find in Chinese restaurants—but heavy.The sips are one of the biggest splurges at the hotel lobby bar of Donald Trump‘s $200 million-plus spectacle, which opened yesterday in the Old Post Office building."
Tiny vessels with spoonfuls of wine; all the better for small hands one can surmise. So rednecks with MAGA hats were sitting next to reporters (angry ones) in the bar and ordering spoonfuls of wine priced at $15 to $140 or martinis at $125 a pop and plates of $16 “hipster fries”—shoestring potatoes slathered in (canned) parmesan, beef jerky, and Shishito peppers — which arrived cold. Meanwhile, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post was drinking champagne and taking a bubble bath in an upstairs room. The television pool filmed him because they had nothing else to film, having been cheated out of the news conference that they had staffed to the max for, and in those situations reporters will either stall for time by interviewing one another, or in this case, give it up altogether. So Milbank, “en deshabiller” raised a tulip glass to the camera while other members of the working press ate Trump chocolates and sat on the beds.
Yes, indeed, if only the walls of the Old Post Office could speak; and preferably translate as well. It will be interesting to revisit a month from now this issue of Trump and his prima facie violation of the emoluments clause and see if the GSA has chosen to disregard the rule of law or just what exactly, if anything, the GSA proposes to do about this situation. One thing is absolutely certain: this is not a good precedent to establish. Our government agencies can’t simply stop enforcing the law and render themselves both impotent and obsolete. The GSA must take action and as for the rest of us, a call and a letter to a Senator and Congressperson is in order. Letters to the editors of newspapers and the news directors of TV and radio stations can do wonders as well. We need to get some light on this subject, it has already been ignored too long, and it cannot be allowed to go unaddressed.