R12m settlement in Trump DC hotel lawsuit
DONALD Trump’s family business and his 2017 US presidential inaugural committee will pay $750 000 (R12 million) to settle a lawsuit by Washington, DC’s attorney general claiming that the committee funneled excessive amounts of charitable funds to the Trump International Hotel.
The payment is nearly threequarters of the $1.03m that Attorney General Karl Racine said the non-profit inaugural committee “dramatically” overpaid to rent event space at the hotel, including for a private party for Trump’s adult children on the night Trump became president. The Trump Organization and the committee denied wrongdoing in agreeing to settle the January 2020 lawsuit.
Trump was not a defendant. His family is expecting soon to sell the hotel, located several blocks southeast of the White House, to Miami investment company CGI Merchant Group.
The hotel will be converted to a Waldorf Astoria, and Trump’s name will come down. The $750 000 will go to two nonprofits that support youth in Washington, D.C.