He added: “It certainly risks people starting to refer to us as a kleptocracy. That’s a term people throw around fairly freely when they’re talking about Russia, fairly or unfairly, and we run the risk of getting branded the same way. America really should stand for more than that.” [...]
The president regularly spends weekends at his family’s properties. On Saturday night he dined at the Trump International hotel, halfway between the White House and the US Capitol. The luxury hotel is situated in the government-owned Old Post Office building, for which Trump signed a 60-year lease in 2013.
Shaub said: “It’s wildly inappropriate for him to be running a hotel that he’s leasing from the federal government. As a president, you shouldn’t be doing business with the United States government. He’s his own landlord at this point.”
Presidents such as John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson put their assets in a blind trust; Jimmy Carter did the same with his peanut farm and warehouse. Trump, who has not released his tax returns, announced before taking office that he would place his business interests – which include hotels, golf courses and merchandise – in a trust run by Donald Trump Jr, his eldest son, and Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer of the Trump Organization.
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