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New Yorker: The problems with Trump's DC hotel deal aren't going away
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-problems-with-trumps-d-c-hotel-deal-arent-going-away?mbid=rss
As the prospect of a Trump Presidency became real last year, a number of leading experts on ethics and corruption called on the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees federal contracts, to cancel the Trump Organization’s lease to operate the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is located in a building owned by the federal government. The President, they said, shouldn’t make money from a federal contract. Last week, the G.S.A. issued its ruling on the matter. In a hundred-and-sixty-six-page letter addressed to Donald Trump, Jr., a G.S.A. contracting officer named Kevin M. Terry declared that President Trump was “in full compliance” with the contract, and that anybody who disagreed was reaching “simplistic ‘black and white’ conclusions.”
This was strangely combative language for a bureaucratic document. To support his own conclusion, Terry cited a Politico article from December that quotes some lawyers saying that there is a legal argument supporting Trump keeping the contract. Such an argument comes down to one word: “admitted.” The G.S.A. contract with Trump includes standard language that “no member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.” For Terry, since Trump was a private citizen on the day he signed the deal with the G.S.A., he was not an elected official when he was admitted to the lease. In the Politico article, several lawyers agreed that this technical reading could allow the Trump Organization to sue the G.S.A. if it cancelled the contract. However, the article was hardly a ringing endorsement of Terry’s approach to the problem. These lawyers didn’t believe that Presidents have a fundamental legal right to benefit from contracts issued by the G.S.A. They just thought the contract was sloppily written.
Terry also failed to mention that the G.S.A. abides by a large body of rules known as Federal Acquisition Regulations, or far, which contains clear language insisting that “Government business shall be conducted in a manner above reproach . . . Transactions relating to the expenditure of public funds require the highest degree of public trust and an impeccable standard of conduct. The general rule is to avoid strictly any conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict of interest in Government-contractor relationships.” Jessica Tillipman, of George Washington University Law School, told Mother Jones that “it’s crazy” to think that the D.C. hotel deal isn’t a conflict of interest. The President oversees the G.S.A. The G.S.A. oversees one of the President’s newest high-profile commercial projects.
It’s possible that Terry felt he had no choice regarding the Trump hotel. The contract was already awarded, and removing it would risk a lawsuit from a famously litigious counterparty. However, the aggressive, baiting tone of his letter is hard not to read as the work of a government official currying favor with the man in charge of that government.
As the prospect of a Trump Presidency became real last year, a number of leading experts on ethics and corruption called on the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees federal contracts, to cancel the Trump Organization’s lease to operate the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is located in a building owned by the federal government. The President, they said, shouldn’t make money from a federal contract. Last week, the G.S.A. issued its ruling on the matter. In a hundred-and-sixty-six-page letter addressed to Donald Trump, Jr., a G.S.A. contracting officer named Kevin M. Terry declared that President Trump was “in full compliance” with the contract, and that anybody who disagreed was reaching “simplistic ‘black and white’ conclusions.”
This was strangely combative language for a bureaucratic document. To support his own conclusion, Terry cited a Politico article from December that quotes some lawyers saying that there is a legal argument supporting Trump keeping the contract. Such an argument comes down to one word: “admitted.” The G.S.A. contract with Trump includes standard language that “no member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.” For Terry, since Trump was a private citizen on the day he signed the deal with the G.S.A., he was not an elected official when he was admitted to the lease. In the Politico article, several lawyers agreed that this technical reading could allow the Trump Organization to sue the G.S.A. if it cancelled the contract. However, the article was hardly a ringing endorsement of Terry’s approach to the problem. These lawyers didn’t believe that Presidents have a fundamental legal right to benefit from contracts issued by the G.S.A. They just thought the contract was sloppily written.
Terry also failed to mention that the G.S.A. abides by a large body of rules known as Federal Acquisition Regulations, or far, which contains clear language insisting that “Government business shall be conducted in a manner above reproach . . . Transactions relating to the expenditure of public funds require the highest degree of public trust and an impeccable standard of conduct. The general rule is to avoid strictly any conflict of interest or even the appearance of a conflict of interest in Government-contractor relationships.” Jessica Tillipman, of George Washington University Law School, told Mother Jones that “it’s crazy” to think that the D.C. hotel deal isn’t a conflict of interest. The President oversees the G.S.A. The G.S.A. oversees one of the President’s newest high-profile commercial projects.
It’s possible that Terry felt he had no choice regarding the Trump hotel. The contract was already awarded, and removing it would risk a lawsuit from a famously litigious counterparty. However, the aggressive, baiting tone of his letter is hard not to read as the work of a government official currying favor with the man in charge of that government.
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