The Problems With Trump’s D.C. Hotel Deal Aren’t Going Away | newyorker.com

As the prospect of a Trump Presidency became real last year, a number of leading experts on ethics and corruption called on the U.S. General Services Administration, which oversees federal contracts, to cancel the Trump Organization’s lease to operate the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is located in a building owned by the federal government. The President, they said, shouldn’t make money from a federal contract. Last week, the G.S.A. issued its ruling on the matter. In a hundred-and-sixty-six-page letter addressed to Donald Trump, Jr., a G.S.A. contracting officer named Kevin M. Terry declared that President Trump was “in full compliance” with the contract, and that anybody who disagreed was reaching “simplistic ‘black and white’ conclusions.”