A group of Senate Democrats led by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote a letter to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles Tuesday demanding a “complete accounting of all donations to the White House ballroom construction project” and information about any conditions underlying those contributions.
“We write to express serious concerns regarding President Trump’s financing of the new White House ballroom construction project through private donations from individuals and corporations whose business interests are deeply impacted by the administration and its decisions,” the senators wrote to Wiles.
The Democratic lawmakers noted the project is expected to exceed $300 million and warned the identities of the individual and corporate donors “has raised troubling questions about the potential for influence peddling and other forms of corruption.”
“To assess possible conflicts of interest and violations of law and ethics obligations, Congress and the American people deserve meaningful transparency,” they wrote.
Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also signed the letter.
The Democrats pointed out that the “terms” of donations to the Trust for the National Mall, the 501(c)3 group funding the ballroom, “remain unclear” and asserted the “opaque nature of this scheme reinforces concerns that President Trump is again selling presidential access to individuals or entities, including foreign nationals and corporate actors.”
They argued that many of the donors listed as contributors have frequent business before the federal government, and that some of corporate donors have been awarded federal contracts worth millions of dollars in revenue.
“These circumstances risk blatant corruption as these companies and their stakeholders seek to position themselves in the government’s good graces,” they wrote.
The donors include Amazon, which has secured billions of dollars in contracts to help the government transition to the cloud, Booz Allen Hamilton, which has many contracts across federal agencies, including a $1.58 billion order for intelligence analysis, and Lockheed Martin, a major defense contractor.
Other corporate donors are Coinbase, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Palantir Technologies and Reynolds American.
Trump has ordered the demolition of the White House’s historic East Wing to build a 90,000-squre-foot ballroom that will be able to hold up to 999 people for events.
The president has defended the project by pledging that it won’t cost taxpayers any money because it is being privately funded.
The Democrats pointed out that a large source of funding for the ballroom construction appears to be the 24.5 million settlement that Alphabet, Inc., Google’s parent company, recently reached with Trump
“This channeling of such funds highlights how the administration has sought to exert undue influence on corporate settlements in exchange for favorable regulatory treatment,” they wrote.
The Democratic senators are asking for Wiles to provide a complete list of all individual and corporate donors and detailed descriptions of any terms under which the contributions were made.
They also want a complete list of donors who have a financial stake in existing federal contracts or have pending bids for contracts under review.
And they want all records and correspondence between Trump or any executive branch officials with donors in which “a direct or indirect reference” was made to the construction of the ballroom.
They asked Wiles whether Trump or any executive branch officials sought guidance from the Office of Government Ethics or a White House ethics official regarding the legality of seeking private donations for the ballroom.
Democratic senators are asking the White House to respond by Nov. 5.
