President Donald Trump’s company is exploring selling the rights to the Trump Organization’s Washington DC Hotel located at the Old Post Office, sources familiar with the matter confirm to ABC News.
The company has hired, JLL, a real estate firm, to market the property.
Trump Organization Executive Vice President Eric Trump confirmed the move in a statement to ABC News saying that “people are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell.” The president’s son added that “since we opened our doors, we have received tremendous interest in this hotel and as real-estate developers, we are always willing to explore our options.”
Sources say the move is motivated in part due to criticism the Trump family has received by ethics watchdogs for profiting off the company just blocks away from the White House. The hotel has become a frequent meeting spot for current and former administration officials and many seeking to do business with the United States. Just prior to assuming office, the president said all foreign profits made by the company would be donated from across all their business interests while he is in office.
The company is aiming to make more than $500 million for the lease rights, sources go on to tell ABC News.
Since Trump’s victory in November 2016, various Republicans and conservative groups have spent at least $2.5 million at the president’s Washington hotel, including more than half a million from the Republican National Committee and pro-Trump super PAC America First Action, campaign finance reports show. The president’s re-election campaign and its high-dollar joint fundraising committee Trump Victory, which frequently hosts lavish fundraisers for the president, also spent nearly $400,000 at the DC hotel.
Overall, various Trump properties across the country, which have become the president’s supporters’ favorite place for gathering, have raked in nearly $7 million from various GOP candidates and groups over the years.
President Trump is facing multiple lawsuits based on the Constitution’s Emoluments Clauses, one of which prohibits American office holders, including the president, from accepting any payment from a foreign government. Another prohibits a president from accepting compensation from the federal government beyond its salary.
A case brought in 2018 by more than 200 congressional Democrats is moving forward in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Another lawsuit brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, D.C., sputtered to a halt last month when a panel of federal appeals court judges threw out their case, which accused the president of illegally profiting from his Trump International Hotel in D.C. by accepting money from foreign governments. But last week, plaintiffs in the case earned a victory in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals when judges granted the attorneys general an appeal before the entire panel.
The efforts to offload the Trump DC Hotel were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
