The GSA Canceled a Planned Statement About Trumps Hotel-Lease Issue

[Judi Lynn]

By Jesse Singal
January 20, 2017
6:18 p.m.


As many have pointed out, one of the most glaring ethical and legal issues facing the newly inaugurated President Trump has to do with his beloved Trump International Hotel in the Old Post Office Pavilion, in Washington, D.C. That’s because language in the lease between the Trump company that is leasing the hotel and the General Services Administration, the agency that manages government-owned properties, explicitly 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[.]”

The reasoning behind this clause, and why it’s particularly applicable to a case in which the “elected official” in question is the president, is simple. Since the property is owned by the federal government and managed by the GSA, for Trump to simultaneously be president and profit off the lease “is a casebook example of both the appearance of a significant conflict of interest and an intolerable intermingling of an elected official’s governmental duties and his family’s personal financial interests,” as two experts on legal issues pertaining to the GSA put it in a Government Executive article back in November. That is, Trump, given that the president chooses the head of the GSA, would get to both rent a building and be his landlord’s boss. The authors argued the GSA should immediately “breach, or do whatever it takes, to end, the contract.” (The watchdog group Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility argued similarly in a complaint it filed today.)

That didn’t happen, of course. Between Trump’s election and today, the GSA had been mostly mum on this issue, insisting it didn’t have enough information about how Trump was going to handle his business to make any sort of determination about the hotel lease, and suggesting it didn’t want to before Trump took office and became an elected official, anyway. Yesterday, though, an agency spokeswoman indicated to Daily Intelligencer via email that the agency would be issuing a “statement” about the situation today, and confirmed I was on the list of recipients.


But nothing was ever sent out, and now a source at the GSA tells me that there is no statement forthcoming, instead pointing me to a January 11 blog post, which simply reiterates the point that the GSA was, at that time, seeking more information about Trump’s business plans before coming to any sort of conclusion.

More:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/01/the-gsa-cancelled-a-planned-statement-on-trumps-lease-issue.html

[SunSeeker]

1. GSA is now Trump's partner in crime. nt

[alarimer]

2. Chickenshits

Too afraid of him to do the right thing. We are going to see this over and over again.