Despite President Trump’s promise to donate all profits from foreign-government sources at his Washington hotel and other businesses, recently released internal documents reveal that Trump’s private company has made only a limited effort at identifying foreign funds.

An undated document sent throughout the Trump Organization, called “Donations of Profits from Foreign Government Patronage,” says asking guests whether they are connected to a foreign government “would impede upon personal privacy and diminish the guest experience of our brand.”

“It is not the intention nor design of this policy for our properties to attempt to identify individual travelers who have not specifically identified themselves as being a representative of a foreign government entity on foreign government business,” the document says.

The Trump Organization said it would track foreign-state money by reviewing three sources: direct billings to foreign governments; group, banquet, and catering business with foreign governments; and payments from a “reasonably identifiable foreign government entity.”

But that description was similarly loose. The company said state-owned and state-controlled entities in industries such as banking and defense “may not be reasonably identifiable” and would not be included in profit donations.

Attorneys and ethics experts have said foreign-government payments to the Trump International Hotel Washington, a few blocks from the White House, would violate the Constitution’s rarely litigated emoluments clause, which forbids such payments. Trump’s lawyers have said the constitutional ban should not apply to fair-market transactions like stays at the president’s hotel.

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The White House on Wednesday referred questions to the Trump Organization, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In a letter Wednesday to Trump Organization executives, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said the document showed the company had little interest in identifying foreign money that ethics experts say could be used to curry favor with the president’s brand.

“Complying with the United States Constitution is not an optional exercise, but a requirement for serving as our nation’s President,” Cummings said. “If President Trump believes that identifying all of the prohibited foreign emoluments he is currently receiving would be too challenging or would harm his business ventures, his options are to divest his ownership or submit a proposal to Congress to ask for our consent.”

The company sent the nine-page document to members of Congress in response to an April request for details on how the company was complying with Trump’s promise, which he delivered in a high-profile January press conference in Trump Tower addressing potential conflicts of interest. In that conference, Trump said he would voluntarily donate foreign profits to the U.S. Treasury.

The document was included as part of a Wednesday letter from Cummings seeking more information on top of the “meager response” the oversight committee said it received from the Trump company.

“This new document demonstrates that President Trump is not even living up to the inadequate commitment that he made to segregate foreign profits at his hotels and voluntarily donate them to the U.S. Treasury,” said Norm Eisen, a chief ethics adviser to President Barack Obama who has joined a landmark emoluments lawsuit against Trump.

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“This comes nowhere near the standard set by the Constitution and we look forward to litigating this matter,” Eisen added. “Even the defective standard they set forward is not being followed. It is another example of the contempt this administration has for American law.”

Trump business partners have voiced their own skepticism about the pledge in recent months. Phil Ruffin, the billionaire investor who co-owns the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas with the president, said in a Forbes interview in March he did not “know anything about” handing over foreign profits from their hotel. “They’re not going to do that,” he said.

The disclosure comes amid signs of an intensifying struggle between Trump and ethics officers and advocates inside and outside of the federal government. On Monday, it was revealed that White House officials are seeking to stop the federal government’s top ethics officer from getting details about waivers granted to lobbyists and other appointees working on the Trump administration.

Documents released by the Office of Government Ethics included a May 17 letter from Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and Budget, who questioned whether the Office of Government Ethics has legal jurisdiction to get information about waivers that have been granted.

In addition to the questions asked by the Oversight Committee, Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee asked Deutsche Bank Wednesday to supply information on whether loans made to President Trump and his family were tied to Russia.

“Congress remains in the dark on whether loans Deutsche Bank made to President Trump were guaranteed by the Russian Government, or were in any way connected to Russia,” the members wrote in a letter to John Cryan, the German mega-bank’s chief executive. “It is critical that you provide this Committee with the information necessary to assess the scope, findings and conclusions of your internal reviews.”

The letter was signed by the top Democratic member of the Committee, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and the ranking members of key Financial Services subcommittees. The Democrats complained that the GOP chair of the Financial Services panel, Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, has not responded to requests to use the full power of the committee to investigate Deutsche Bank and the work of its Moscow office.

“Deutsche Bank’s pattern of involvement in money laundering schemes with primarily Russian participation, its unconventional relationship with the President, and its repeated violations of U.S. banking laws over the past several years, all raise serious questions about whether the Bank’s reported reviews of the mirror trading scheme and Trump’s financial ties to Russia were sufficiently robust,” the Democrats wrote in their letter.

Deutsche Bank spokeswoman Renee Calabro declined to comment on the letter Wednesday.


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