President Donald Trump came under fire from ethics watchdog groups, Democratic lawmakers, and other critics Thursday after Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney confirmed to reporters that the president will host the Group of 7 meeting next June at the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort in Florida.
“This is unbelievable,” declared Noah Bookbinder, executive director of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). “Given the potential consequences the president is facing for abusing the presidency for his own gain, we would have thought he would steer clear of blatant corruption at least temporarily; instead he has doubled down on it.”
The announcement from Mulvaney came after Trump, in August, teased the possibility of hosting leaders of world’s seven largest advanced economies at his resort near Miami, suggesting that Secret Service preferred that location for the G7 meeting. The president’s comments prompted CREW to request records from the city of Doral and Secret Service.
Mulvaney, quoting an unnamed official, said during a press briefing that “it’s almost like they built this facility to host this type of event.” Mulvaney added about potential conflicts of interest that “the president has made it clear since he’s been here that he hasn’t profited since he’s been here.”
However, watchdog groups have raised concerns about just that since Trump revealed shortly before taking office in January of 2017 that he would not divest from his business empire.
“The president is now officially using the power of his office to help prop up his struggling golf business,” Bookbinder said Thursday. “There appears to be no bottom to President Trump’s corruption. What matters most to him is his personal profit and personal advancement, not the best interests of the American people. There is now no question that the American government is being used as a public relations and marketing subsidiary of the Trump Organization.”
Click Here: Atlanta United FC Jersey
Bookbinder’s criticism was echoed by other ethics experts, including former director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics and current CREW senior adviser Walter Shaub:
Karen Hobert Flynn, president of the nonprofit Common Cause, charged in a statement that with this announcement, “President Trump’s contempt for the United States Constitution is laid bare again.”
SCROLL TO CONTINUE WITH CONTENT