The Trump Organization is reportedly considering reacquiring a hotel it used to run in downtown Washington, D.C., less than three years after selling the lease to the property.
The hotel property located at the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue was opened as the Trump International Hotel in 2016, but the lease was sold to CGI Merchant Group in 2022 for $375 million and rebranded as a Waldorf Astoria. The Wall Street Journal reported that Eric Trump met with an executive from the bank that controls the property’s lease at Mar-a-Lago earlier this week.
The report claims that the discussions were “preliminary and may not lead to any sale” to the Trump Organization, but the Trump family is interested in regaining control of the property.
The discussions come as Donald Trump is set to return to the White House, which is blocks away from the hotel, in 10 days. CGI Merchant Group lost the rights to the lease after defaulting on a loan, and the rights were sold to the lender, BDT & MSD Partners, at a bankruptcy auction.
The deal between the federal government and the Trump Organization to redevelop the Old Post Office into a hotel predated the president-elect’s successful 2016 campaign.
Once Donald Trump entered the White House in January 2017, Democrats raised concerns about the property and ties to the then-president. In early 2022, ahead of the sale, Democrats asked the General Services Administration to terminate the lease of the hotel with the Trump Organization, something the GSA did not do.
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On Friday, the Trump Organization released an ethics plan for the company as Donald Trump nears his return to the presidency, with the president-elect not being involved in day-to-day operations of the company when he takes office.
“The Trump Organization is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father’s presidency,” Eric Trump said in a statement Friday.
