The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

When Trump visits his clubs, government agencies and Republicans pay to be where he is

President Trump steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Miami International Airport on June 18. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

When President Trump finished the first official rally of his reelection campaign this week, he got on Air Force One. But he didn’t go home to Washington. Instead, he flew 190 miles in the opposite direction — to visit his own Doral golf resort, outside Miami.

The resort’s profits have fallen since Trump took office. But it had a major event planned for the next day, a fundraiser for Trump’s reelection campaign.

It would be his 126th visit to one of his properties since taking office. And this visit — like more than a dozen before it — would bring paying customers, allowing Trump to play a double role.

The president would be the headliner and the caterer.

Trump has bigger designs for the Doral club: He has suggested holding next year’s Group of Seven meeting — a gathering of world leaders — at Doral or another of his luxury resorts, current and former White House staffers said.

Since taking office, Trump has faced pushback about his official visits to his properties from some of his aides, including inside the White House Counsel’s Office. They worried about the appearance that he was using the power of the presidency to direct taxpayer money into his own pockets, according to current and former White House officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

Trump has rebuffed such warnings, overruling a recommendation that he not visit his Turnberry golf club in Scotland last summer, according to aides. And in recent months, he has scheduled even more detours from official trips to visit his businesses — golf courses in Ireland, Los Angeles and Doral.

In all, his scores of trips have brought his private businesses at least $1.6 million in revenue, from federal officials and GOP campaigns who pay to go where Trump goes, according to a Washington Post analysis.

They gave Trump valuable marketing opportunities — to showcase his opulent properties on an international stage.

Trump’s preference for his own properties also has reshaped the GOP fundraising schedule, with benefits for the Trump Organization.

About one-third of all the political fundraisers or donor meetings that Trump has attended — 23 out of 63 — have taken place at his own properties, according to the Post analysis of federal campaign finance records and the president’s public schedule. Campaign finance records show several Republican groups paying to hold events where Trump spoke. GOP fundraisers say they do that, in part, to increase the chances Trump will attend.

It has also reshaped the spending habits of the federal government, turning the president into a vendor.

“The president knows that by visiting his properties, taxpayer dollars will flow directly into his own pockets. Then, unsurprisingly, the president visits his properties all the time,” said Ryan Shapiro, the executive director of a watchdog group called Property of the People. That group obtained extensive records on federal spending at Trump properties, via ­public-records requests and lawsuits, that it shared with The Post.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment. Trump still owns his businesses, although he says he has given day-to-day control to his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric.

Federal spending at Trump’s properties has drawn scrutiny from the attorneys general in Maryland and the District of Columbia. They have sued Trump for allegedly violating the Constitution’s prohibition against presidents receiving extra gifts or payments — known as emoluments — from the federal government outside the presidential salary. They have also accused Trump of violating a constitutional ban on “emoluments” from foreign governments, by doing business with them at his D.C. hotel. The case is pending.

And this week, the House passed an amendment banning the State Department from spending money at Trump-branded properties.

“It’s against the emoluments clause of the Constitution to be making money out of the job,” said the amendment’s sponsor, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) “And he does it every chance he can.”

The Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. George Sorial, a former ethics adviser to the company, said Trump’s properties do not seek to make a profit from government customers but charge them the cost of their stays.

And in interviews, political customers say their attendees love patronizing the Trump brand.

To estimate the revenue produced by Trump’s visits to his properties, The Post reviewed public records about federal spending and campaign spending at Trump’s properties — then compared those records to Trump’s publicly available travel schedule.

The Post sought to identify any spending that seemed triggered by Trump’s visit — payments by federal officials who accompanied him, payments by campaign committees for events at which Trump spoke.

The actual amount of money Trump has received as a result of his visits and campaign events is probably much higher than the $1.6 million The Post identified. That’s because most of the records available about government spending date to the first half of 2017 — covering just the first few months of Trump’s presidency so far. And the records of campaign spending don’t account for other revenue that Trump may have made off campaign events, including overnight stays by donors attending the event.

These records show that Trump began receiving payments from his own government in February 2017, when he made his first presidential visit to his Mar-a-
Lago Club in Palm Beach, Fla.

The Defense Department paid $12,000 for rooms at the club, according to invoices, emails and other records obtained by Property of the People.

In April 2017, Trump returned again to Mar-a-Lago — where he hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping. Over those four days, the government paid Trump’s club at least $30,000 on meeting rooms and hotel lodgings for then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and other VIPs in suites and beachfront cabanas, the documents show.

Tillerson got the Adam Suite, touted for its “double sized ­Jacuzzi tub.” Then-Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin was assigned to the “Banyan Bungalow,” which includes a private meditation garden, according to a State Department manifest.

“Do you know what they charged for each room?” one State Department official asked Michael Dobbs, a State Department travel coordinator in an email obtained by Property of the People. The Post could not reach Dobbs for comment.

“$546 — I believe which is 300% of the lodging per diem,” Dobbs wrote back — meaning it was three times the standard allowance for federal travelers in that part of Florida. There are some exceptions, but 300 percent is the maximum amount that the government will reimburse any traveler for lodging.

Also, as first reported by ProPublica, the government was sent a $1,000 bill rung up by Trump aides at one of the club’s bars.

“They asked the bartender to leave so they could speak confidentially, and the Secret Service did not allow the bartender to enter the room again,” the club’s catering director wrote. “The group served themselves.”

In all, The Post found $145,000 in government payments to three Trump businesses — Mar-a-Lago; a golf club in Bedminster, N.J.; and the golf resort in Turnberry — that appeared connected to Trump’s visits.

The State Department and the White House did not answer questions about how much more federal money had been paid to Trump’s clubs.

Within the White House, ethics officials sometimes sought to dissuade Trump from making side trips to his courses or holding public presidential events there. But in some cases, Trump did it anyway, former White House aides said. He stopped to visit his Waikiki hotel during a Hawaii layover in 2017, on his way to Asia. He stopped in Turnberry.

Earlier this month, Trump also inserted a three-day detour to his golf club in Ireland between official trips to the United Kingdom and France — taking Trump and his aides hundreds of miles out of the way.

“We’re going to be staying at Doonbeg in Ireland because it’s convenient and it’s a great place. But it’s convenient,” Trump said then. While in Ireland, he also met with Prime Minister Leo ­Varadkar.

His ethics officials have also sought to dissuade his subordinates. Stefan Passantino, a former White House lawyer, tried to bar any Cabinet or White House official from appearing at a Trump property in their official capacity, according to former White House officials.

Sorial, the Trump Organization’s former compliance counsel who served as the company’s in-house ethics adviser until this year, in an interview rejected the idea that Trump was turning a profit off business with his own government.

“It generates nothing. We charge domestic government entities our costs,” Sorial said. Last year, for instance, Trump spent two days at his Turnberry golf course in the middle of an official trip to Europe. Sorial said the hotel charged the government only $175 per room, a huge discount from the normal rate of $500 or more.

“I assure you,” he said. “It’s not business we want.”

Sorial did not provide any statistics on the total revenue from government entities.

Federal Election Commission records paint a more detailed picture of political spending at Trump properties, showing about $1.2 million paid by GOP-linked committees for events like the one on Wednesday — where Trump was the guest of honor, and also the guy who owned the room.

Republican officials say Trump has not told them to hold events at his properties.

But, after a while, he didn’t have to.

They saw how much time he spent at his own properties — and decided to go where the president liked to be.

In addition, GOP fundraisers said, Trump hotels are used to the logistics of presidential events, are luxurious and can even be cheaper than competitors.

The Trump Organization’s properties are “world-class venues in destination locations that our supporters want to visit and are excited to attend events at,” said Brian O. Walsh, president of a pro-Trump committee — America First Action PAC — that has spent $427,000 on events at Trump properties. “The staff is always respectful, professional and provides best-in-class service.”

So far, GOP fundraisers say, donors aren’t concerned that some of their money winds up spent at the president’s private business.

They’re thrilled.

“The Trump hotel in Washington is the best hotel in D.C.,” said Roy Bailey, GOP donor and fundraiser for Trump’s 2020 reelection. “It’s got all the ample space and it’s got the president’s name on it, it’s fantastic. It’s a huge draw for people who want to support the president.”

Doug Deason, another prominent Trump donor, explained one reason: Visiting Trump’s hotel often means hobnobbing with officials in Trump’s government, who treat the lobby as a friendly hangout. He said he recently saw White House counselor Kellyanne Conway there and Attorney General William P. Barr, who was having dinner and taking pictures with customers.

“Donors, when they come to town now, they want to go to the hotel. They think it’s the place to be,” said Sean Spicer, an adviser to America First Action and former White House press secretary.

This week’s fundraiser took place at Doral — a resort that Trump bought in 2012 that is now “severely underperforming” its competitors, according to testimony that Trump’s representative gave in a county tax dispute last year.

Trump stayed overnight at the resort Tuesday, then attended Wednesday’s fundraiser — which attracted about 100 donors and raised $6 million, according to a person familiar with the event, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly. The event was closed to the public.

Joshua Partlow, Alice Crites, Anu Narayanswamy and Toluse Olorunnipa contributed to this report.