U.S. Democrats urge government to weigh canceling Trump hotel lease
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[February 18, 2022]
By Andy Sullivan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. government
should consider canceling former President Donald Trump's lease of a
historic Washington building he made into a luxury hotel before he sells
it, a U.S. congressional committee said on Thursday.
The committee in the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives said
recent developments indicated his Trump Organization may have filed
inaccurate financial statements when the government leased the property
to him before he ran for president.
Representatives Carolyn Maloney and Gerald Connolly, the two leading
Democrats on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Committee,
wrote to ask the U.S. General Services Administration, the federal
property manager, to consider terminating the lease, rather than
allowing him to sell it for profit.
"No one should be rewarded for providing false or misleading information
to the federal government or for seeking to profit off the presidency,"
they wrote.
The hotel, at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, became a
gathering point for Trump supporters and some foreign government
officials during his presidency, and a sticking point for critics who
said it violated ethics laws.
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![](../images/021822PIX/news_o63.jpg)
Former U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during his first
post-presidency campaign rally at the Lorain County Fairgrounds in
Wellington, Ohio, U.S., June 26, 2021. REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton//File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Feb/18/images/ads/current/2021_lda_Businessdirectory.png) Trump's company reached a deal last
year to sell the money-losing hotel to Miami investment firm CGI
Merchant Group for $375 million, which could net him a $100 million
profit, according to media reports.
New York Attorney General Letitia James accuses Trump and his family
of misrepresenting their real estate assets in order to obtain bank
loans and lower tax bills. Trump, a Republican, accuses James, a
Democrat, of a political witch hunt.
Trump's former accounting firm, Mazars USA, said this month it could
no longer stand behind a decade of financial statements and said it
was dropping the Trump Organization as a client.
The committee said those developments cast doubt on the accuracy of
financial statements the Trump Organization submitted in 2010 when
it applied for the lease and in 2013 when it applied for a
construction loan.
(Reporting by Andy Sullivan; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Howard
Goller)
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