Coronavirus: ‘Just treat us the same’: Trump family ask for rent relief for controversial hotel

Pennsylvania Avenue hotel has attracted legal scrutiny because of conflict-of-interest risk

Donald Trump’s two sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., are asking for federal money to help rescue the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, whose revenues have plummeted thanks to the coronavirus pandemic – and which is operated by a company that the president himself owns.

In a statement quoted by the New York Times, Eric Trump said all that he and his brother were asking from the government was the same relief that other federal tenants are receiving. “Just treat us the same,” he said; “Whatever that may be is fine.”

However, responding to the Times story, leaders of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform warned the administration that allowing an agency to grant relief to a Trump-owned business would present a “blatant conflict of interest”, and that the US General Services Administration (GSA), which owns the building in which the hotel operates, should “stand up to the president” and deny his sons rent relied.

The five-star Trump International Hotel hotel is situated in the Old Post Office building, which the Trumps leased from the GSA in 2013. The building had previously fallen into a state of disrepair, and the Trumps’ leasing it meant that the government began to pull in substantial revenue from a building that had previously been a drain on public money.

However, the pandemic’s decimation of the hotel business means that the business may struggle to pay its $268,000 rent, and the Trumps are reportedly seeking to negotiate changes to the rental agreement to ameliorate the outbreak’s effects on their business.

The Old Post Office hotel has been a bone of contention since Mr Trump was elected, with lawsuits arguing its business may violate the constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, a rule designed to bar the president and other officials from receiving gifts and money from foreign governments without congressional approval.

Critics of Trump’s business interests have long argued that the hotel presents a major risk that conflicts of interest could arise, with foreign figures and governments potentially paying huge sums for rooms there that would go directly to a Trump-owned business.

The hotel has regularly been used by foreign delegations visiting the US capital, some of whom have paid tens of thousands of dollars or more to stay there for extended periods. According to the Washington Post, among the various high-level guests known to have stayed at the hotel were a group of lobbyists representing Saudi Arabia who paid for 500 nights at the hotel over a three-month period.

At the end of 2019, the Trump Organisation said it would consider offers to buy it out of the hotel’s lease.