- Documents released Monday detail foreign government spending at the Trump Hotel in Washington, DC.
- The documents show Saudi Arabia and the UAE rented rooms while lobbying the Trump administration.
Foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, dropped hundreds of dollars on rooms at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, in what may have been an effort to sway US policy under the previous administration, according to records released Monday by the House Oversight Committee.
Opened in 2016, Trump's DC property, housed in a former post office and leased by the federal government, was the subject of lawsuits and criticism from experts who accused the former president of presiding over a massive conflict of interest. The hotel, which the Trump Organization sold off in May 2022, became a go-to spot for Republican influencers as well as foreign delegations, which spent more than $3.7 million at the property during Trump's time in office, per an earlier disclosure.
Monday's documents, which had been subpoenaed by the Democratic-led committee, detail spending that came during key moments in US foreign policy.
After imposing an embargo on their rival, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates spent at least $164,000 at the Trump property between late 2017 and mid-2018, according to the committee. During this time, the committee noted, former President Donald Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who had criticized the blockade — a move sought by UAE lobbyists — and approved a $1.2 billion arms deal with the Saudi kingdom.
The Qatari government also spent more than $300,000 at the property during this time, the records show.
"These documents sharply call into question the extent to which President Trump was guided by his personal financial interest while in office rather than the best interests of the American people," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who leads the committee, said in a statement.
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