Trump Used Washington Hotel To Boost His Pay In Violation Of Constitution, Democrats Say

Donald Trump leveraged the then-Trump International Hotel in Washington to unconstitutionally add to his $400,000 a year salary during his term as president, according to a group of House Democrats.

In a report out Friday, Democrats on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said Trump had likely violated the U.S. Constitution’s ban on emoluments, compensation outside of the president’s ordinary pay and benefits. He did so, they said, by charging inflated room rates at his hotel only blocks from the White House to Secret Service agents, administration officials and office seekers.

“The Constitution makes clear: beyond a salary, the president may not receive any additional payments from federal or state governments. This is a non-waivable prohibition against exploiting the office to convert and pocket public funds,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the committee.

“While we still do not know the full extent of the unconstitutional payments Trump pocketed while fleecing American taxpayers, one thing is certain: We must put legal barriers in place now to prevent the kind of rip-off corruption our Founding Fathers so strongly opposed,” Raskin said, adding he planned to work with fellow Democrats on the panel “in the coming days” on a legislative fix to the issue.

The 58-page report is a follow-up to one released in January that found Trump received almost $8 million in payments to Trump-related enterprises from foreign governments during his term.

Article II of the Constitution specifically prohibits the president from receiving emoluments, extra compensation outside of his established compensation, and says his pay cannot be reduced or increased until after an election has occurred.

Democrats say the foreign payments they analyzed in January amounted to emoluments. While Congress can approve a president’s acceptance of disclosed foreign gifts that would otherwise run afoul of the emoluments clause, there is no such escape valve for domestic emoluments, which are subject to a complete ban, they say.

“It creates a clear and unconditional prohibition on the president receiving any payments—other than formal ‘Compensation’—from the federal government or the states. Under no circumstances can the president collect payments from the federal government or a state outside of his or her official salary,” the report said.

Trump’s company later sold the hotel, which became the Waldorf Astoria Washington, D.C., part of the Hilton group of hotels. The U.S. Supreme Court declared court cases about whether Trump had accepted foreign emoluments moot after Trump left the White House in 2021.

Using documents from 11 months worth of Trump International Hotel lodging records from 2017 and 2018, Secret Service documents and other information, the report said it documented over $300,000 in payments Democrats say raised the possibility of pay-to-play or corruption.

“What is shocking is not the size of these payments but the fact that even the narrowest of windows into President Trump’s business dealings — just 11 months at one hotel — reveals a menagerie of unethical transactions, including flat-out violations of the Constitution,” the report said.

“More than half of these payments totaling nearly $175,000 may have directly violated—or, in the case of Secret Service expenditures, definitely did violate—the Constitution’s prohibition against a president’s receipt of domestic emoluments. All of these payments created the appearance of the very kind of pay-to-play and influence trafficking schemes that the Framers and two and a half centuries of anti-corruption legislation have sought to eradicate.”

The report said the Trump hotel charged the Secret Service well above the government-mandated maximums often when its personnel stayed there to protect Trump, his family or foreign dignitaries. The Secret Service was treated like “a fabulously wealthy sucker for whom price was no object, and an ATM to fill empty rooms,” the report said.

For example, the report said in February 2018, the Secret Service approved a request to pay an $895 room rate, or 450% of the federal per diem rate.

“The room records also show that former President Trump’s D.C. hotel rented out more than 100 rooms that evening at rates of less than $895 — including at least one room rented out for just $150.49,” the report said.

The rooms were also sometimes rented out at rates well above those paid by foreign leaders. That same night, the hotel charged rooms to members of the entourage of the royal family of Qatar at rates between $280 and $490, while it was charging the Secret Service $895.

“In such instances, President Trump was fleecing the U.S. government for more money in constitutionally prohibited domestic emoluments than he was shaking down from foreign states and monarchs for constitutionally prohibited foreign emoluments,” the report said.

It also detailed stays during the 2017-18 window by people who later sought and received pardons for crimes, were seeking federal appointments, or who were already government officials needing to stay in the Washington metro area but who chose to stay at the Trump hotel’s less convenient location downtown.

For example, the report said Kelly Knight Craft, the U.S. ambassador to Canada and later to the United Nations, insisted on staying at the hotel for three nights in June 2018, at a rate of $1,395 a night. The economic development conference she was attending was being held in National Harbor, Maryland, 10 miles away, at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center.

After an aide came up with two other hotels closer to the convention, the report cited State Department emails showing Craft insisting on staying at the Trump facility instead.

“However, former Ambassador Craft insisted on staying at former President Trump’s D.C. hotel, telling her aide, ‘Let’s keep TRUMP hotel,’” the report said.