President Trump made his first visit to Chicago as president on Monday to address a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, but he also found time to raise a reported $4 million for his re-election campaign at a fundraiser at Trump International Hotel & Tower. Trump is attending another fundraiser Tuesday evening at Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., this one expected to bring in $13 million for House Republicans. Trump does not run his hotel and real estate business while he is president but he retained financial ownership.
So far, according to a tally by the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), political organizations, special interest groups, foreign governments, and groups linked to foreign governments, have held 182 events at Trump properties since his inauguration, "possibly to buy access to and curry favor with the Trump administration."
CREW also reported Monday that "the cost of a basic room at Trump's D.C. hotel is nearly three times its average rate on Nov. 7," which happens to be "the night between Senate Republicans' two-day retreat at Trump's Hotel. ... Though the rates are exorbitant, surely many will be willing to pay the high cost for the chance to bump into [Senate Majority Leader] Mitch McConnell, or even President Trump himself. It's practically the Trump Hotel's business model." Trump's decision to hold the G7 summit at his Miami golf resort proved too much for Republicans, though, and he reversed course.
Eric Trump, who is running the family business while Trump is president, recently suggested the Trump Organization might sell its D.C. hotel. Earlier in October, the full U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals revived a lawsuit by Maryland and the District of Columbia arguing that Trump's ownership of the hotel violates the Constitution's Emoluments Clause. A three-judge panel of Republican appointees to the 4th Circuit appellate bench had thrown out the lawsuit in July.