Trump Organization in talks to repurchase Washington DC hotel lease, WSJ reports

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

January 10, 2025 1:11 PM EST Updated an hour ago


Jan 10 (Reuters) - President-elect Donald Trump's company is in negotiations to repurchase the lease on a hotel in Washington D.C. it used to own, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The Trump Organization had sold the lease on the hotel, which is blocks away from the White House in the historic Old Post Office Building, for $375 million in 2022. The hotel was leased to the Trumps in 2013 by the federal government, which owns the building.

Eric Trump, executive vice president at the company and Trump's son, discussed purchasing the lease with merchant bank BDT & MSD Partners - which controls the long-term lease on the hotel, the report said. Talks are still in the preliminary stages and may not lead to a sale of the property's lease, the report added. The hotel currently operates under a brand owned by Hilton Worldwide (HLT.N).

During Trump's first term, Democrats had criticized the lease as a conflict of interest, after which his son, Donald Trump Jr, took the reins at the hotel.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-organization-talks-repurchase-washington-dc-hotel-lease-wsj-reports-2025-01-10/

[Bleacher Creature]

1. Time to rev up the old bribe machine

[brush]

3. Yep, grifting R Us again so corrupt clients/complicit nations can book an entire...

floor of suites with the bucks going into trump co. coffers. They're not even trying to hide it.

[johnnyfins]

7. And it will be exponentially worse

this time around. What does he have to lose?

[LudwigPastorius]

2. Of course.

There is money to be made off of the office of the president.

Bribery, kickbacks, and general corruption comes racing back to the White House right out in the open because NOTHING was done about it the first time.

[IronLionZion]

4. It's legit classy and upscale as Waldorf Astoria, great for a special occasion

I didn't set foot in it when it was Trump hotel and I won't if he gets it again. Anything he touches turns to shit, high prices but garbage quality and stupid customers.

[Historic NY]

5. Need a place for "deposits" to be let

[underpants]

6. It's like a collection plate for cronies at the Church of Trump

[Botany]

8. Let grifting begin

Right after Trump was inaugurated China bought 30 million $s of room rentals in Trump’s
D.C.hotel the money was washed through the hotel and 10 million of that money ended
up in a Chinese bank in Trump’s name.

[2naSalit]

9. Fuck it...

I quit.

[Owens]

10. Back to the old money laundering operation

[Comfortably_Numb]

11. Jesus H. Christ in a sidecar. Donnie the dick is determined to get all the money out of the treasury.

He’ll be overbilling the secret service raw. Not that I give a shit about the secret service these days.

[elleng]

12. Old Post Office Building, OH DAMN, AGAIN!

Across the street from my former office, when it was the Interstate Commerce Commission (the country's first regulatory agency.)

[LeftInTX]

13. This again?? Ugh...doesn't surprise me...

[Jean Genie]

14. People power!

Noooooo! Let us ALL chip in, buy the damn hotel ourselves, and turn it into a hotel/haven for the homeless and indigent. What do you think DU?Could we do that? I'd gladly pitch in as much as I can afford!

[James48]

15. GSA shouldn't let him.

He’s now a convicted felon, and as such, because if the nature of his crime being a crime against a government, he should be barred by law from holding government contracts.

Even the Trump Organization is a convicted criminal and shouldn’t be eligible for GSA contracts.

[Tanuki]

16. Gerald Connolly: "Blatant self dealing"

https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-connolly-sounds-alarm-following-report-donald-trumps-firm-talks

"Washington, D.C. (January 10, 2025)—Today, Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, Ranking Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement after a Wall Street Journal report revealed that President-elect Donald Trump’s real estate firm is in talks to reclaim its former hotel in Washington, D.C.—a site that Trump harnessed to unethically and unconstitutionally rake in millions from foreign governments, a federal agency, federal and state officials, federal job seekers, and presidential pardon recipients.

“A second Trump presidency will bring with it another round of blatant self-dealing. The Trump Hotel in Washington is a billboard for conflicts of interest. Trump’s D.C. hotel received an estimated $3.7 million from foreign governments during his time in office, and he now returns to dip his fingers back in the pot. This kind of in-your-face self-enrichment cannot be tolerated again.”

“GSA, which never answered legitimate questions about its role in the original Trump Hotel lease, must uphold the Constitution which prohibits this type of personal gain by a sitting President from a government lease.”

On October 18, 2024, Oversight Democrats released a staff report revealing how, while he was in office, Trump used the D.C. hotel to unlawfully take hundreds of payments from a federal agency—the U.S. Secret Service—and also to take legally and ethically questionable payments from federal and state officials, federal job seekers, and presidential pardon recipients.

On January 4, 2024, Oversight Democrats released a staff report and new documents produced by Donald Trump's former accounting firm, Mazars USA LLC, establishing that while former President Trump was in office, he received at least $7.8 million from 20 governments, which sought and often obtained favorable treatment from the Trump Administration, over a two-year period at just four of Trump’s properties, including the D.C. hotel."

[Historic NY]

17. He needs to reopen his bank, for foreign deposits.

[Mosby]

18. IIRC the lease sold for like 3 times what experts thought was the value.

All that extra cash, along with the loans from Internet bank, helped him retire those deutsch bank loans and stabilize his revenue streams.

[louis-t]

19. Did the contractors get paid? There was $5 million in liens

against the property. When it's a lease, I'm not sure if those guys get paid at closing when the lease sells. One lien was $2 mil and the other was $3 mil. One of the contractors was the electrician that had 2 shifts totaling 16 hours a day to get it ready for asshole's first coronation. Dorkface refused to pay him.