House Freedom Caucus members chose a curious meeting place to discuss a deal that could avoid shutting down the government Tuesday night, The Daily Beast reported.
The discussions took place at a townhouse near the U.S. Capitol owned by a convicted tax cheat. Added to that, some of its neighbors are furious at the choice of venue because having a bunch of high-profile right-wing conservatives turn up at a building zoned as a home is causing a nuisance.
They say it functions exclusively as an office for business meetings and lobbying activity.
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A previous Washington Post report said that the Conservative Partnership Institute had quietly bought $41 million worth of property in the area. But a Daily Beast investigation did not find any rental payments to corporate entities associated with CPI or the property’s owner for the address.
"According to FEC filings, the HFC-aligned House Freedom Fund PAC paid $6,500 in monthly rent to CPI, dating all the way back to late 2018. Then, the HFF stopped paying rent in January of this year, the same month the move-in purportedly began," The Beast's report stated.
The property's owner, a convicted felon, has rented out the townhouse for a year with no one actually living there.
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"For nearby Capitol Hill residents, the ethics questions take a backseat to the state of the neighborhood, and the recent microboom of political and corporate real estate purchases in the area has led to a spike in disruptions to their daily life," said The Beast's report.
"Amid this new trend, the home — a stately three-story brick townhome on a corner lot, replete with a castle turret — remains something of an outlier. And a mystery."
Read more at The Daily Beast.
