The congressional Republican retreat at Donald Trump's golf resort in south Florida is offering a financial windfall to the president as he returns to office, according to a report Tuesday.
GOP leaders have huddled at the Miami-area Trump National Doral Golf Club to hash out details of a plan that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) hopes will get the president's agenda passed by Memorial Day. But the president stands to gain financially no matter what happens in those political discussions, reported the Washington Post.
"Holding the congressional retreat at a Trump property threatens to ignite the same kind of criticism that dogged Trump’s first term: that he has sought to personally profit off his public position in part by maneuvering elected officials, Secret Service agents and others in his orbit to stay at his properties, at times on the taxpayers’ dime," the Post reported.
"Trump’s critics have long said doing so is a violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, which aims to ensure that the public interest trumps personal gain."
Nearly all of the GOP conference's 218 members are attending the three-day event, along with some of their family members and staffers. This year is the first time House Republicans have spent money directly at a property owned by the president.
“Tell me that being here in Doral doesn’t beat the heck out of being in Washington, D.C., in January,” said Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL), kicking off Monday's event with Trump before the president returned to the capital.
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The White House declined to comment on the story, but an official told the paper on the condition of anonymity that organizers tried to limit staffers staying at Doral to essential personnel and said rates paid for the rooms were within the bounds of federal travel per diem rates.
But the retreat will likely revive concerns about self-dealing that hovered over Trump's first term, the Post reported.
“The exorbitant rates charged to the Secret Service and agents’ frequent stays at Trump-owned properties raise significant concerns about the former president’s self-dealing and may have resulted in a taxpayer-funded windfall for former president Trump’s struggling businesses,” said then-Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) wrote to the Secret Service director in 2022.