Trump group finds ethics plans complicated
Document: Ability to donate from hotel profits ‘impractical’
As Donald Trump prepared to assume the presidency, he unveiled an ethics plan promising that his company would donate to the U.S. Treasury “all profits” from foreign government patronage of his hotels. Several months later, the Trump Organization is finding that pledge daunting to keep.
The company told Congress in a recent submission that it was all but impossible to identify every foreign government official who walked through the doors of its hotels. And investigating all its patrons, the organization argued, would interfere with its business and ask too much of customers.
“To fully and completely identify all patronage at our properties by customer type is impractical in the service industry,” the company wrote in a nine-page pamphlet outlining its policy.
The Trump Organization shared the document this month with members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform in response to a request for information about how the policy would be put into effect.
The committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, released the document publicly Wednesday, along with a letter to the Trump Organization in which he said he had “grave concerns” about the policy, and “deficiencies in this approach are obvious.”
The public disclosure of the document has now set off new questions about whether the president could potentially run afoul of a provision in the Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause, which essentially prohibits federal government officials from accepting gifts from foreign governments. The clause has become a cudgel for Trump’s critics, who argue that the presidency of a businessman raises a host of potential conflicts of interest, leading some groups to sue.
“Complying with the United States Constitution is not an optional exercise, but a requirement for serving as our nation’s president,” Cummings wrote in a letter to George Sorial, the Trump Organization’s chief compliance counsel.
Later Wednesday, the top House Judiciary Committee Democrat sent a letter to the president himself, asking that he provide a “full accounting” of all possible foreign emoluments he had received.
The Trump Organization and Trump’s lawyers say the Emoluments Clause does not apply to his business empire, a range of hotels, golf courses and real estate across the globe. They argue that a hotel guest paying market rate for a room does not amount to a gift or payment.
Even so, Trump’s lawyer, Sheri A. Dillon, said he had voluntarily adopted the profit donation policy “to put to rest any concerns.”
The company plans to donate the foreign government profits to the Treasury in a lump sum at the end of the fiscal year. The company also said it was calculating the profits based on the lodging industry’s accounting standards.
As part of the broader ethics plans, Trump handed the management of his business over to his oldest sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, and other executives. He also instituted a ban on new deals in foreign countries.
From the beginning, the profit donation policy appeared to be a difficult undertaking. It may not be feasible to identify every person who sits at a Trump hotel bar or eats in one of his restaurants.