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Update, 2:10 p.m.: The GSA has issued a statement denying that it has taken an official position on the Trump lease question.
No word yet from the House Dems on how they came to believe otherwise during their meeting with GSA Public Buildings Service deputy commissioner Michael Gelber.
Original post, 1:05 p.m.: House Democrats say that an official in the federal General Services Administration has told them that Donald Trump would violate his company’s lease of the Washington, D.C., Old Post Office building by becoming president without divesting himself of his stake in the operation of a recently opened Trump-brand hotel on the site.
The document states that “No … 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,” a guideline that makes sense especially when said elected official is the president, who would then be in the conflicted and corruption-friendly position of being both the building’s ultimate landlord and its tenant.
Four House Democrats released a letter Wednesday that states that a GSA official confirmed to them that this clause would indeed apply to a President Trump:
The Deputy Commissioner informed our staff that GSA assesses that Mr. Trump will be in breach of the lease agreement the moment he takes office on January 20, 2017, unless he fully divests himself of all financial interests in the lease for the Washington D.C. hotel. The Deputy Commissioner made clear that Mr. Trump must divest himself not only of managerial control, but of all ownership interest as well.
Politico reports, for what it’s worth, that the litigation and appeals process involved in actually breaking the lease could take years.
The D.C. hotel has already made headlines by advertising itself specifically to foreign diplomats, whose patronage would seem to constitute the potential “pay” portion of a “pay-to-play” arrangement.
The president-elect announced this week that he is delaying a previously announced Dec. 15 speech about the steps he will allegedly take to avoid conflicts between his business interests and his duties as the chief executive of the United States.
