From The Washington Post:
Trump fought to keep the ballroom fundraising contract secret. Here’s what’s in it.
The agreement governing hundreds of millions in private donations was kept secret until a watchdog group sued and a judge ordered it disclosed.
The agreement establishing the legal and financial framework for the planned $400 million undertaking — the most significant change to the White House in decades — was signed in early October, less than two weeks before demolition crews started destroying the East Wing. Public Citizen, a government watchdog organization, sued to obtain the contract between the White House, the National Park Service and the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit managing donations for the project, and shared the document with The Post.
“The Trump administration’s failure to disclose this contract was flatly unlawful,” said Wendy Liu, a Public Citizen attorney and lead counsel on the lawsuit, filed after the Park Service and the Interior Department failed to fulfill a public records request for the document. “The American people are entitled to transparency over this multi-million-dollar project.”
The secrecy surrounding the contract mirrors the administration’s broader approach to the project. White House officials have declined to disclose the total amount raised, the identities of all donors or, until recently, basic details about the building’s design. Court documents show Trump knew he was going to tear down the East Wing at least two months before doing so, but he never told the public.
The contract provisions, taken together, allow wealthy donors with business before the federal government to contribute anonymously to a sitting president’s pet project, while exempting the White House from key conflict of interest safeguards and limiting scrutiny by Congress and the public.
“President Trump is working 24/7 to Make America Great Again, including his historic beautification of the White House, at no taxpayer expense,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement defending the administration’s process.
White House officials said not publicly posting the agreement was standard practice for contracts involving the executive residence, citing security concerns. They also said offering anonymity for donors was standard for significant projects and framed the use of private funds as a boon for taxpayers. The administration did not respond to questions about failing to respond to the public records request for the contract or fighting the release of the document in court. Trump has said that the administration has raised about $300 million for the project.
The contract resembles templates used by the Park Service for more routine fundraising partnerships — with several notable differences: Provisions peppered throughout the agreement prevent the signatories from revealing the identities of anonymous donors, and a review process for detecting conflicts of interest with the Park Service and Interior Department makes no mention of doing the same for the president, other White House officials or the 14 other executive departments he oversees.
Dozens of the project’s known donors — which include Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Palantir and Google — collectively have billions of dollars in federal contracts before the administration. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.) Critics have argued that allowing anonymous gifts to a sitting president’s signature project creates precisely the kind of conflict the contract itself states it seeks to prevent.
“This document reveals that anonymous donations are the heart of this agreement,” said Jon Golinger, a lawyer and public policy advocate with Public Citizen. “Who are these anonymous donors, and what are they hiding?”
Charles Tiefer, a retired law professor at the University of Baltimore who spent three years on a congressionally authorized commission scrutinizing wartime contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the anonymity provisions potentially set up the Trump administration to block congressional inquiries into the project’s funding.
“If Congress knocks on the door, the White House is going to slam it shut and say, ‘You’re not allowed to know these donors,’” Tiefer said.
The National Park Service did not immediately respond to questions about the agreement. The Trust for the National Mall said the Park Service asked it to accept and manage private donations for the project and that it is “not involved in the fundraising, planning, design, contracting, or execution” of the ballroom, spokeswoman Julie Moore said in an email. Donations are subject to the same vetting process the Trust uses for other Park Service projects, and donor names are disclosed in its annual report, website and tax filings, she added.
Except those who don’t want to be.
“Some donors may wish to remain anonymous and we respect donor wishes, while in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations,” Moore said.
