[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 8, 2017)]
[House]
[Page H1600]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              TRUMP HOTEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Georgia (Mr. Johnson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to discuss 
another glaring and scandalous drama involving President Trump's 
conflict of interest that has been lost in the shuffle of the 
President's nightly tweets and the daily Russian revelations. I would 
like to talk about the Old Post Office Building down the street on 
Pennsylvania Avenue.
  The General Services Administration solicited proposals for 
redevelopment of the Old Post Office Building in 2011, selected The 
Trump Organization in 2012, and signed a 60-year lease in 2013 to 
redevelop the building.
  For the first time in U.S. history, a sitting President now operates 
and profits from a private business in a taxpayer-owned Federal 
building. The Old Post Office Building lease agreement explicitly 
prohibits any elected official of the U.S. Government from serving as a 
lessee or from profiting under the lease.
  Before the President took office, career officials at GSA confirmed 
that the prohibition on elected officials benefiting from the lease is 
a categorical ban on any elected official, including the President, 
being a party to or benefiting from the lease. The prohibition not 
allowing elected officials to benefit from GSA leases exists because of 
the outsized influence elected officials, especially the President, 
have over the funding and management of GSA.
  President Trump has violated the very terms of the lease agreement 
that his company entered into with the United States Government for the 
Trump International Hotel the very moment that he took the oath of 
office to become President of the United States of America.
  Soon, President Trump will appoint the administrator who serves at 
the pleasure of the President. That same administrator will be 
responsible for administering and managing the lease where the guy who 
signs his paycheck is the guy who benefits from the lease. That, ladies 
and gentlemen, is a classic conflict of interest.
  To try to hide this conflict, President Trump has announced a so-
called divestment plan that has two of his adult children responsible 
for negotiating with the GSA on behalf of daddy. If you think daddy's 
kids won't make sure that daddy is happy with the administrator and if 
you think that the administrator won't make sure that the kids are 
happy with him, then you would be the one who would buy some oceanfront 
property in Chicago. Essentially, the President controls the man 
exercising judgment on his lease.
  The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee has repeatedly 
written to the GSA trying to get more information about this glaring 
problem, but we have not received a substantial response. On March 7, 
2017, Ranking Member Peter DeFazio and I wrote to the GSA Inspector 
General requesting that they examine administration and management of 
the Old Post Office Building lease.

                              {time}  1030

  Congress needs an independent investigation to determine how and when 
GSA plans to resolve this breach of the lease and eliminate this 
conflict of interest, how GSA is shielding the career officials working 
through this conflict, and whether GSA is receiving fair market value 
for any amendments to the lease. This lease has already been amended 
five times, without any congressional oversight.
  There is also the elephant in the room as to whether this Trump hotel 
business is violating the U.S. Constitution. It is unclear whether 
payments by foreign governments to the Trump International Hotel 
provide evidence of a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the 
Constitution. There are also serious allegations of whether foreign 
diplomats are steering business toward the Trump International Hotel. 
Could it be that Putin has already made arrangements to rent the 
presidential penthouse suite in the Trump Hotel for $10 million a year 
for the next 4 years? Or perhaps he has paid $100 million for an option 
to lease the Grand Ballroom at the Trump Hotel over the next 4 years. 
The American people need and deserve answers to these very important 
questions.
  President Trump and GSA need to come clean and address these conflict 
of interest issues in a transparent fashion that protects the interests 
of the American taxpayers.

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