It’s going to be amazing,” he said. “It’s a great thing for the country. It’s a great thing for Washington.”
That was Donald Trump, March 21, 2016, speaking about the Old Post Office, which was built in 1899.
The General Services Administration (GSA) awarded Trump the contract in 2012.
Trump promised to employ the architect who had, over decades, championed the building’s careful, historic restoration. And he promised the involvement of a multibillion-dollar real estate investment firm with a rock-solid financial reputation. After Trump’s team got the nod from the GSA, however, it reversed itself on both these promises.”
The senior vice president who led the Old Post Office Building redevelopment left the company in October, one a day after the ribbon-cutting of the new Trump International Hotel.
Various media outlets have reported on the conflict of interest inherent in the President of the United States having this contract.
Now Government Executive provides more details.
The lease—in which Donald Trump would, in effect, be both landlord and tenant—now presents unprecedented and intolerable conflicts of interest.
However, the contract writers made sure that no elected officials — or government employees — could benefit from the hotel: “No … elected official of the Government of the United States … shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom…”
The clause is consistent with longstanding prohibition on entering into contracts with federal employees. The prohibition extends to any “business concern or other organization owned or substantially owned or controlled by one or more Government employees.” This “policy is intended to avoid any conflict of interest that might arise between the employees’ interests and their Government duties, and to avoid the appearance of favoritism or preferential treatment by the Government toward its employees.”
There’s much more in this detailed critique by Steven L. Schooner, the Nash & Cibinic Professor of Government Procurement Law at the George Washington University Law School, and Daniel I. Gordon, senior advisor to GW’s Government Procurement Law Program.
Read it and laugh, or weep. But read it you must.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com