House Panel: Trump’s DC Hotel Hid $3.7 Million Paid By Foreign Gov’ts, Falsely Claimed Big Profits But Actually Lost $70 Million

Former President Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel remains controversial, even after his term in office has ended. According to a report by CNN, not only did the Trump Organization falsely claim high profits when the hotel actually lost money, the hotel also hid millions of dollars paid to it by foreign governments, a major concern regarding conflicts of interest.

CNN’s Brian Todd reported on the story to Pamela Brown, filling in for Wolf Blitzer on The Situation Room.

“New information tonight that Donald Trump’s celebrated Washington hotel was not the successful venture the former president claimed it was,” said Todd, describing a report by the House Oversight Committee that the Trump International Hotel DC claimed it earned more than $156 million in income from its 2016 opening and last year, but it actually “suffered a net loss of more than $70 million in that period.”

Todd spoke with Forbes Magazine’s Zach Everson, asking how the hotel lost so much money.

“The math never made sense,” replied Everson. “I think the problem was, they couldn’t fill the rooms.” He noted there had been “no shortage of pro-Trump fans saddling up to the hotel’s bar” and embassies and other groups renting the banquet rooms, but many of the actual guest rooms were remaining vacant.

A CNN employee at the hotel during a weekend stay earlier this year took video and photos that showed “few guests at the hotel,” said Todd, and “hallways elegant but empty,” the elevators going up and down infrequently.

The House Oversight Committee’s documents say the Trump Organization funneled more than $24 million from other parts of the company to the hotel, reported Todd.

Their findings also include an analysis of the hotel’s financial documents showing that it received about $3.7 million from foreign governments, “which the committee says raises concerns about whether Trump violated part of the Constitution that bans federal office holders from receiving gifts, payments, [or] anything of value from foreign officials,” said Todd.

There’s more: the committee says Trump received “undisclosed preferential treatment from Deutsche Bank on a $170 million construction loan for the hotel.”

Trump himself often bragged about the hotel, located in the historic Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Ave., calling it “the most coveted piece of real estate in Washington, D.C.”

Sources have told CNN that the Trump Organization has been looking to sell the lease on the hotel for more than a year, said Todd.

The Trump Organization sent CNN a statement calling the House Oversight Committee’s allegations “intentionally misleading, unequivocally false, and irresponsible,” and denying that they had received any preferential treatment from any lender. Deutsche Bank also replied that the committee had made “several inaccurate statements” about the bank and its loan agreement with the Trump Organization.

Watch the video above, via CNN.