Tag: Trump inaugural committee

D.C. attorney general sues Trump inaugural committee over $1 million booking at president’s hotel

Washington Post logoD.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine sued President Trump’s inaugural committee and business Wednesday, alleging that the committee violated its nonprofit status by spending more than $1 million to book a ballroom at Trump’s D.C. hotel that its staff knew was overpriced and that it barely used.

During the lead-up to Trump’s January 2017 inauguration, the committee booked the hotel ballroom for $175,000 a day, plus more than $300,000 in food and beverage costs, over the objections of its own event planner.

The committee was formed to organize the events around the inauguration, but Racine alleges it instead “abandoned this purpose and violated District law when it wasted approximately $1 million of charitable funds in overpayment for the use of event space at the Trump hotel.” Continue reading.

W. Samuel Patten sentenced to probation after steering Ukrainian money to Trump inaugural

An American political consultant whose guilty plea marked the first confirmation that illegal foreign money was used to help fund Donald Trump’s inaugural committee was sentenced to probation Friday by a federal judge who cited his cooperation with U.S. prosecutors.

W. Samuel Patten, 47, in August admitted steering $50,000 from a pro-Russian Ukrainian politician to Trump’s committee in an investigation spun off from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Patten acknowledged he was helped by a Russian national who is a longtime associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and the case was referred to prosecutors with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the Justice Department’s national security division.

Before he was sentenced, Patten, accompanied in court by his wife, sister and friends and neighbors, thanked the judge for her handling of his case and asked for a sentence that would permit him to “continue in whatever way I can to serve my country.”

View the complete April 12 article by Spencer S. Hsu on The Washington Post website here.

Confidential Memo: Company of Trump Inaugural Chair Sought to Profit From Connections to Administration, Foreigners

The memo outlines how Colony, the company founded by Tom Barrack, an investor who chaired the inaugural, aimed to exploit its connections to Donald Trump. Federal prosecutors are conducting a wide-ranging probe into the nonprofit that ran the inaugural.

The investment firm founded by the chairman of Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, Tom Barrack, developed a plan to profit off its connections to the incoming administration and foreign dignitaries, according to a confidential memo obtained by WNYC and ProPublica.

“The key is to strategically cultivate domestic and international relations while avoiding any appearance of lobbying,” the memo says. Colony, which primarily invests in real estate, sought to capitalize on its access to the White House to get an early lead on infrastructure investments and to attract assets from potential investors.

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan on Monday subpoenaeddocuments from the nonprofit 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee, including anything related to foreign donations. Such donations to presidential inaugural committees are barred by law. Investigators are probing whether foreigners gave money in exchange for influence with the incoming Trump administration, NBC News reported.

View the complete February 5 article by Justin Elliott on the ProPublica website here.

Federal prosecutors issue sweeping subpoena for documents from Trump inaugural committee, a sign of a deepening criminal probe

Federal prosecutors in New York on Monday delivered a sweeping request for documents related to donations and spending by President Trump’s inaugural committee, a sign of a deepening criminal investigation into activities related to the nonprofit organization.

A wide-ranging subpoena served on the inaugural committee Monday seeks an array of documents, including all information related to inaugural donors, vendors, contractors, bank accounts of the inaugural committee and any information related to foreign contributors to the committee, according to a copy reviewed by The Washington Post.

Only U.S. citizens and legal residents can legally donate to a committee established to finance presidential inaugural festivities.

View the complete February 4 article by Rosalind S. Helderman and Michael Kranish on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s Inauguration Paid Trump’s Company — With Ivanka in the Middle

The Trump International Hotel, Washington, DC. Credit: Win McNamee, Getty Images

As the inaugural committee planned the landmark celebration, internal concerns were raised about whether Trump’s Washington hotel was overcharging for event space. The spending could be a violation of the law.

When it came out this year that President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee raised and spent unprecedented amounts, people wondered where all that money went.

It turns out one beneficiary was Trump himself.

The inauguration paid the Trump Organization for rooms, meals and event space at the company’s Washington hotel, according to interviews as well as internal emails and receipts reviewed by WNYC and ProPublica.

View the complete December 14 article by Ilya Marritz with WNYC and Justin Elliott with ProPublica on the ProPublica website here.

How money flowed into — and out of — Trump’s inaugural committee

President Trump and first lady Melania Trump reach the end of the inaugural parade at Lafayette Square on Jan. 20, 2017. Credit: Katherine Frey, The Washington Post)

On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump’s inaugural committee has joined his campaign, his business, his administration and his family in being under investigation by federal law enforcement agencies.

At issue, the Journal says, is whether donors to the committee sought official favors from the administration or to influence hiring at the outset of Trump’s term. The probe reportedly stems from material seized during the raid on Michael Cohen’s homes and office in New York in April. Cohen, of course, is the former Trump personal attorney who this week was sentenced to three years in prison on a number of federal charges.

There have long been questions about the money contributed to the inaugural committee. Trump’s team raised more than twice as much as the previous record-holder, Barack Obama’s 2009 committee. In total, the committee brought in more than $106 million — despite being more modest in scope than Obama’s.

View the complete December 14 article by Philip Bump on The Washington Post  website here.

Trump inaugural committee directed $26 million for event production to firm connected to Melania Trump adviser

The following article by Michael Kranish and Ashley Parker was posted onthe Washington Post website February 15, 2018:

A quarter of the money spent by the inaugural committee flowed through a firm connected to event planner Stephanie Winston Wolkoff. Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President Trump’s inaugural committee paid $26 million for event production services to a firm connected to a friend of first lady Melania Trump, Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, who serves as a volunteer adviser in the East Wing, according to officials and newly released tax filings.

The firm passed along the vast majority of the funds — $24 million — to other vendors who provided entertainment, staffing and other services, according to a committee document detailing the spending. Wolkoff, who employed about a dozen staff members for the event, retained $1.62 million for consulting and executive production, according to a person familiar with the arrangement. Continue reading “Trump inaugural committee directed $26 million for event production to firm connected to Melania Trump adviser”