Hi there,

If you think Democracy Now!’s reporting is a critical line of defense against war, climate catastrophe and authoritarianism, please make your donation of $10 or more right now. Today, a generous donor will DOUBLE your donation, which means it’ll go 2x as far to support our independent journalism. Democracy Now! is funded by you, and that’s why we’re counting on your donation to keep us going strong. Please give today. Every dollar makes a difference—in fact, gets doubled! Thank you so much.
-Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Saudi-Paid Lobbyists Put Up U.S. Veterans at Trump’s D.C. Hotel

HeadlineDec 06, 2018

Lobbyists representing Saudi Arabia’s government paid over a quarter-million dollars to rent rooms at Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016. That’s according to The Washington Post, which reports the lobbyists then offered the rooms to U.S. military veterans as part of a free trip to Washington. Once in D.C., the veterans were sent to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers against a bill the Saudis opposed. The Washington Post reports the lobbyists paid for some 500 nights’ stays at the Trump International Hotel, where rooms average a rate of $768 per night. The case is a central focus of a lawsuit charging President Trump violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution by receiving payments from foreign governments. And a correction to one our headlines from Wednesday: The attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Maryland have sent subpoenas to the Trump Organization for financial documents relating to President Trump’s business interests. Maine and the five federal agencies have also been subpoenaed—they did not issue subpoenas.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top