Trump Allegedly Sells ‘Crown Jewel’ Hotel; New owners to get rid of their name

Donald Trump is reportedly selling his DC hotel, the property that was once considered the “crown jewel” of his real estate empire but has since become a huge money loser.

the Wall Street Journal says CGI Merchant Group will buy the rights to the Trump International Hotel in Washington for $ 375 million.

Trump’s name will come from the hotel, which Hilton will manage as part of its Waldorf Astoria portfolio.

The building itself is owned by the federal government. Trump won a lease to turn it into a hotel in 2012 and then opened it in 2016.

After he won the 2016 election, the property became a gathering place for a mix of right-wing supporters, lobbyists and others who hoped to win Trump’s favor while he was president or mingle with those in his circle.

Once Trump left office, the place emptied.

“Those people no longer have any reason to get together and try to find out what’s going on at the scene because the man is gone,” Kevin Chaffee, senior editor at Washington Life, told The Guardian in March. “So it must be like a ghost town.”

But even during Trump’s presidency, the hotel struggled financially, and a congressional report last month found that racked up $ 70 million in losses more than four years.

The House Oversight and Reform Committee said the Trump Organization had to lend the hotel $ 27 million and seek preferential treatment to delay payments on a $ 170 million loan.

The hotel was the center of a lawsuit that accused Trump of profiting from the presidency in violation of the Constitution.

That lawsuit was ultimately dismissed by the Supreme Court, but Congress continues to investigate the property’s settlements for potential conflicts of interest.

Noah Bookbinder, President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said to the hill that Trump should have been forced to dispose of the property before taking office.

Instead, he said, Trump “spent four years using it for influence peddling and constitutional violations.”

“Selling it now that it’s out of the office and the garbage has dried up is, to say the least, too little, too late,” Bookbinder told the website.

CNN Notes the agreement is subject to a review by the General Services Administration, which is expected to take 60 days.