During Donald Trump’s presidency, the governments of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Turkey, China and Malaysia spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Trump International Hotel in Washington at the same time they were trying to influence U.S. foreign policy, according to investigative findings released Monday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Hotel receipts obtained by the Oversight Committee show that the then–prime minister of Malaysia and his delegation spent $259,724 at the hotel during a one-week stay in September 2017, including a $10,000 room and a $1,500 “Personal Trainer” for embattled Prime Minister Najib Razak, as well as $9,229 for “Coffee Break[s].” At the time, Razak was unsuccessfully lobbying the Trump administration to drop an investigation into a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund he had co-founded.
