motherjones--2020-08-27--Stay to Play: Inside the Sordid History of Trump’s DC Hotel

Last fall , the Trump organization dropped an October surprise : It was thinking of selling its luxury DC hotel , a towering , granite symbol of Trump ’ s takeover of official Washington—and of his unprecedented , for-profit presidency .
The timing was notable .
It was nearly three years to the day that the Trumps used golden scissors to snip the ribbon on the just-renovated property , housed in a historic , Romanesque Revival–style federal building that had served as DC ’ s main post office until World War 1 .
By contract with its landlord , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first chance the Trumps had to offload their lease .
The proposed price tag : $ 500 million , one of the highest amounts per room that any hotel has ever commanded .
But why put the hotel on the block now ?
“ People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel , and therefore we may be willing to sell , ” the president ’ s son Eric told the Wall Street Journal , which broke the story .
The hotel had become known as one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interest .
Yet Eric ’ s rationale didn ’ t add up .
By his logic , the Trump Organization hoped to halt ethical questions over the hotel by creating a gigantic new conflict of interest , since the motives of any potential buyer would be in question .
A glossy sales brochure that CNN obtained put forth another reason : The hotel wasn ’ t earning its full potential .
As if anticipating questions about why the hotel wasn ’ t raking in more , the sales pitch claimed the Trumps had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revenue in 2019 by not seeking business from foreign governments .
( Trump pledged to donate profits from foreign government business to the Treasury when , in 2017 , he refused to fully relinquish control of his business empire . )
“ Tremendous upside potential exists for a new owner to fully capitalize on government related business , ” the brochure stated .
It wasn ’ t just here that revenues were lackluster .
They were coming up short at a number of Trump businesses—even before the pandemic hit .
November ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ just for Trump ’ s White House residency but also for his Old Post Office tenancy .
If he loses , his prized hotel could easily revert to what it was before his 2016 win—discounted and empty .
The sycophants , the Levs and Igors , the One America News Network propagandists , the Nigerian politicians , the America First Action fundraisers , the bankers jetting in from Oklahoma , and the White House staffers and administration alums will be gone .
As will the Trump-appointed lackeys at the GSA currently overseeing his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Oh , and Joe Biden will be Trump ’ s new landlord .
At the hotel ’ s grand opening on October 26 , 2016 , less than two weeks before Election Day , Trump boasted that his project was “ under budget and ahead of schedule.
” Neither claim was quite true , according to a person familiar with the project , but the more dubious assertions were buried in the business plan , which industry experts considered about as realistic as expecting Mexico to underwrite a border wall .
Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ part of a nine-year stretch , between 2006 and 2014 , in which his company spent bigly , often with cash , to acquire 18 properties .
When the GSA solicited bids for the property in 2011 , Trump offered the agency a higher rent payment than any of his rivals , according to one of those competitors .
And his company pledged $ 200 million to renovate the Old Post Office , $ 170 million of which was lent by the good folks at Deutsche Bank .
That loan and five others—totaling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ next four years , creating a possible financial squeeze for the Trump Organization and a whole new ethical morass .
Trump committed to pay the GSA $ 250,000 a month over a 60-year lease , with possible rent increases pegged to the Consumer Price Index .
And if undisclosed revenue thresholds were met , the GSA would receive additional payments from Trump , starting at 3 percent of the profits for the first 10 years of the lease and increasing by 0.5 percentage points for five decades thereafter .
The GSA has said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the project averaged $ 626 a night .
But to recoup its massive investment , the Trump Organization needed to charge at least $ 750 a night on average , industry experts calculated , according to the Washington Post .
( Ivanka Trump—who , like brothers Don Jr. and Eric , holds a 7.4 percent stake in the project—has disputed that estimate , but she would not share her projections .
The Trump Organization did not respond on the record to questions from Mother Jones . )
In its 2012 appeal of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with Trump ’ s bid , BP-Metropolitan Investors , a rival consortium that included Hilton Worldwide , took both the agency and the Trump Org to task , saying the project couldn ’ t succeed because the lease payments were too high : The following year , the GSA and Trump , a six-time veteran of hotel bankruptcy proceedings , signed the lease to redevelop the Old Post Office into a luxury hotel .
When the hotel opened three years later , BP-Metropolitan Investors ’ prediction that it would be a money pit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rates during its opening weeks were about $ 625 a night— $ 280 more than what other downtown DC luxury hotels were charging , per STR , a data hospitality benchmarking firm .
And with that premium , guests were being asked to associate with the brand of a racist , sexist , almost-certain loser .
“ Trump hotel not worth the trouble for wedding planners , travel agents ” a CNN headline declared .
Analyses by NBC News and New York magazine found plummeting prices and available rooms on dates when other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hay-Adams , were sold out or charging higher rates .
By the week before the election , room rates at Trump ’ s new hotel had dropped to $ 400 , Emily Jane Fox reported in Vanity Fair .
In her feature on the newly opened hotel , she used the word “ empty ” six times .
Then its owner became president .
This lesson probably isn ’ t taught in business school , but it turns out that being elected leader of the free world can buttress even the iffiest business @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
After Trump ’ s election , the hotel jacked up its already lofty drink prices ( the cheapest cocktail hit $ 24 ) and room rates surged back to among the highest in the city .
( Mar-a-Lago also capitalized on Trump ’ s victory , doubling its initiation fee to $ 200,000 . )
In a pre-inauguration press conference , Trump made it clear that his word was the only guarantee that he ’ d wall himself off from his business interests .
Further , a revision to his trust documents @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time from his companies .
The hotel and Trump political entities quickly tag-teamed to establish the business as the social hub of the new president ’ s realm .
Trump ’ s inaugural committee dished out more than $ 1 million to the hotel for four days of event-space rentals , an expenditure so grand that after it came to light , the DC attorney general sued the group , alleging it “ improperly wasted ” nonprofit funds by “ grossly overpaying ” the hotel .
( The case is ongoing . )
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials , including Cabinet members Steve Mnuchin and Linda McMahon , moved in , briefly making the hotel their weekday residences .
Meanwhile , prior to Inauguration Day , the hotel hosted a reception for about 100 foreign diplomats , the Washington Post reported , luring business from overseas governments .
The event came before Trump said he would forgo profits from foreign government officials , but the hotel employed a “ director of transient and diplomatic sales ” until 2018 .
( The Trump Organization has annually paid over its foreign-government profits @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are unaudited and based on overseas officials self-reporting their visits . )
The Trump Organization had initially projected that its new hotel would lose $ 2.1 million in the first four months of 2017 , per confidential documents the GSA accidentally posted online .
By Trump ’ s inauguration , the hotel was firmly entrenched as both a Republican hangout and a way to curry favor with the new president and funnel money into his pocket .
Allow Rudy Giuliani ’ s now-indicted associate and eventual hotel fixture Lev Parnas to explain : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Trump Hotel , ” he told Rachel Maddow earlier this year .
“ Every event would be there , so everybody would hang out there afterwards .
All the meetings would be there .
So it ’ s basically you would see the same people every day , all the same congressmen that supported the president would be there.
” The hotel became as central to the plotlines of the Trump presidency as the red room was in Twin Peaks .
Convening with Parnas and fellow Soviet-born American businessman Igor Fruman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discussed his effort to create Ukrainian dirt on Joe Biden , a scheme that was connected to Trump ’ s impeachment .
White nationalists Richard Spencer and Evan McLaren were seen at the lobby ’ s Benjamin Bar around the time they were plotting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville—about which Trump infamously declared there were “ very fine people on both sides.
” In 2017 , the hotel hosted a conference aiming to improve US-Turkish business relations , organized by a group whose chair ’ s company once paid retired Lt. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for pro-Turkey lobbying that Flynn failed to disclose .
And it became a regular Instagram backdrop for Beltway Republicans .
Most mornings , photos from the hotel would pop up on the social media accounts of junior Hill staffers , lobbyists , and Trump stans “ just hangin ’ out ” with the likes of Giuliani , Kellyanne Conway , and Anthony Scaramucci ( for an 11-day stretch anyway ) .
Finding a daily stream of conflicts of interest , I soon made covering the business my full-time beat , launching the 1100 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social media and camping out in the airy lobby , I ’ ve published 340 issues documenting Trump ’ s transactional presidency .
Representatives of at least 31 foreign governments have popped up at the hotel , as have numerous foreign candidates for office and political operatives .
To prove he was permitted to enter the United States after being implicated in the 2009 bribery conviction of then-Rep. William Jefferson ( D-La . )
, Atiku Abubakar , the main opposition candidate in Nigeria ’ s 2019 presidential election , stayed at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ You said I can not step my foot on American soil .
Here I am , not only in America , but in the hotel belonging to the president , Donald Trump , ” Abubakar reportedly said later .
Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo later gave Voice of America an interview from a comfy couch in one of the hotel ’ s signature suites .
The business has also hosted parties for various embassies , including those of Bahrain , Kuwait , and the Philippines .
Along with foreign dignitaries and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has enjoyed a steady flow of business from lesser swamp things , such as the Fourth of July 2019 gathering of QAnon disciples that included an appearance from the disheveled , fedora-wearing fellow who some Q acolytes believe is JFK Jr. ( who staged his death in 1999 to avoid the deep state , natch ) .
In 2018 , a self-proclaimed prophet fighting off Trump ’ s political foes by speaking in tongues convened a three-day conference at the hotel to “ focus on real-time prophetic revelation with governmental authority , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revenue ( he doesn ’ t report profit ) from the hotel in the first three years of his term topped $ 121 million .
White House staffer ( and hotel spa namesake ) Ivanka Trump ’ s take has been more than $ 11.7 million .
That influx of cash came while many other Trump properties appeared to struggle .
Hotels in Toronto and Panama and six buildings in New York that had marketing deals with the Trump Org cut ties ; at Trump ’ s resort in Doral , Florida , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years while profits dropped even more dramatically at Trump ’ s Chicago hotel and tower .
His golf clubs in Scotland , meanwhile , have hemorrhaged millions ( as another story from this issue details ) .
The Trump Organization is a private and notoriously secretive company .
But as part of its lease with the GSA , the company is required to provide the government with the hotel ’ s monthly financial statements .
At first , the agency shared redacted versions of those documents on its website .
But that transparency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president ( and effectively the landlord ) .
And despite being asked numerous times since , the GSA ’ s Trump-appointed leadership has refused to provide lawmakers with the hotel ’ s unredacted financial information unless they pledge not to make it public—even defying a congressional subpoena .
The GSA ’ s public buildings commissioner , Daniel Mathews , however , provided a clue to the hotel ’ s finances when he testified that the Trump Organization did not pay the agency any funds beyond its base rent in 2018 .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ revenues were below the threshold that would have given taxpayers a cut of the profits .
Supposedly .
As Mathews also explained , neither the agency nor an independent party audits the hotel ’ s financial statements .
Instead , the US government just takes the Trump Organization at its word , which has not worked out well for many other Trump business partners .
But , anecdotally anyway , it appears that—notwithstanding a surge in the wedding business from Trump administration staffers—the DC hotel is struggling like its counterparts elsewhere .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known to have returned to party at the Trump Hotel was Kuwait ’ s , and even that three-time customer decided not to make it a four-peat in 2020 .
After hosting two consecutive conferences at the Trump hotel in DC , the Turkish American business confab decamped to the Ritz-Carlton .
The Independent Petroleum Association of America , the Institute of International Bankers , and the climate-change-denying Heartland Institute were one-and-done customers .
( This summer , Trump twice delayed filing his 2019 personal financial disclosure , temporarily preventing the public from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s financial health . )
If you get them in private , some members of Trumpworld ’ s lesser castes complain about the hotel ’ s pricy drinks and slow service .
They still frequent the business , but it ’ s more of an obligation than a choice .
Some now pregame at a nearby dive bar , called Harry ’ s , to avoid dropping big bucks at the Benjamin Bar .
And that brings us to October 25 , 2019—the day before the third anniversary of the hotel ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s contract with the GSA allowed the company to sell the lease and the news broke that the Trumps were planning on doing just that .
Despite the eye-popping , half-billion-dollar price tag , there was some initial interest .
Entrepreneur Sheila Johnson , the co-founder of BET and the owner of a handful of resorts , confirmed she had her eye on the property .
DC developer Brian Friedman thought about making a serious play but decided against it after getting a closer look at the hotel ’ s financials .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but then another opportunity came up , ” he said .
“ The asset is not performing to where I need to bid .
I ’ m not sure the economics make sense…As I look under the hood , it ’ s not good news.
” Then COVID-19 hit and the sale of the lease was put on hold .
While DC deemed hotels essential businesses exempt from closing , Trump ’ s was obliged to shutter its bars , steakhouse , conference facilities , and spa , reopening them in stages .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ industry , the pandemic pummeled the Trump Organization , which laid off or furloughed 2,800 employees , including 237 staffers at the DC hotel .
The pandemic also created more conflicts .
At one point , Trump ’ s company reached out to the GSA to inquire about getting a break on the hotel ’ s rent , the New York Times reported .
( In May , the GSA said it had not granted any relief because it had not received a formal request from the Trump Organization ; the agency declined @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sightings during the lockdown dwindled to Rep. Clay Higgins ( R-La . )
, in town to protest COVID-19-related closures ; supporters of Tiger King ’ s Joe Exotic , who were seeking a presidential pardon for the imprisoned iconoclast ; and a sex worker who Instagrammed a video of herself popping a bottle of champagne on a bed in one of the hotel ’ s guest rooms .
Caption : “ Life is so good.
” While much is unique about the president operating a guest lodge down the block from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s stewardship of the Old Post Office is largely a replay of his washout with New York ’ s Plaza Hotel : a highly leveraged acquisition , with a shaky business foundation , that ended up on the market a few years after it opened to great fanfare .
In 1988 , after outmaneuvering competitors and assuming millions in debt , Trump secured possession of the iconic landmark positioned on one of America ’ s most prominent corners .
Business bustled early on , with Trump ’ s connections , real and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ business and lofty room rates .
But the financials underlying Trump ’ s hefty vanity purchase didn ’ t work .
By 1992 the Plaza Hotel was available for a steal .
As for what happened next—and what it may tell us about the future of Trump ’ s DC hotel—the Plaza filed for bankruptcy .
Valued at just 64 percent of what Trump had paid for it , the celebrated hotel ended up in the hands of creditors .
They in turn sold it to two business partners : a billionaire entrepreneur @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Saudi Arabia .
“ [ Trump ’ s ] the only owner to ever bankrupt the hotel in its 112-year history , ” said journalist Julie Satow , author of The Plaza : The Secret Life of America ’ s Most Famous Hotel .
“ And that includes someone who ran the hotel when he was in a prison cell in New Delhi.
” Yes , that backstory , as well as Trump ’ s five other hotel bankruptcies , had been well reported by the time the Obama-era GSA awarded him possession @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the agency hadn ’ t been aware of that history , BP-Metropolitan Investors pointed it out in its appeal of the decision : For good measure , the consortium provided the GSA “ media and public records regarding Trump bankruptcy , loan defaults , project terminations , and litigation.
” The dossier ran 76 pages .
Reelection puts every president ’ s legacy on the line .
But for Trump the financial stakes are almost as great .
“ If he loses , that hotel goes in the tank , ” Rep. Peter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
DeFazio chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure , which has oversight of the lease .
“ They ’ ll be broke and we ’ ll be repossessing it , ” he said .
While the true believers may still congregate at the temple of their “ god-emperor , ” foreign leaders , lobbyists , GOP lawmakers , industry groups , trade war casualties , the newly unemployed , and onetime Trump supporters who lost loved ones to COVID-19 don ’ t seem likely to return .
Further , a Biden-helmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to taxpayers rather than the Trump family .
And the agency will have approval over successor tenants , so the vetting process could be far stricter than one undertaken by Trump officials .
A de-Trumped GSA might also provide the oversight that Trump ’ s appointees have failed to do—even retroactively .
“ I just hope if there is a Biden administration , it doesn ’ t adopt the ‘ Let ’ s look forward , not back ’ mistake that the Obama administration made with regard to torture , ” says Kathleen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University ’ s law school , who specializes in government ethics .
One possibility Clark envisions : an independent audit of the hotel ’ s books from the past four years to see if it did in fact meet the revenue thresholds that would have triggered the profit-sharing clause in its contract .
In August , Trump told the New York Post he ’ d had second thoughts about putting the hotel on the market .
( So much for his pre-inauguration pledge that he would divorce himself from the operations of his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
It does well , ” he told the paper .
The agent marketing the property declined to comment on Trump ’ s claim that his company was no longer seeking to sell the property .
If Trump is reelected and does decide to hang onto the hotel , there ’ s no reason to think the next four years would be much different than the first four .
In fact , he wouldn ’ t even need to pay lip service to ethics obligations .
And if his company resumes its search @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any bid “ other than a bargain-basement or fire-sale-level offer…at this point , must be viewed skeptically and assumed to be driven by something other than bargain forces , ” says Steven Schooner , a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University Law School .
“ Or in other words , a bribe , gift , or something other than what it appears.
” For now , Donald Trump and his family are continuing to cash in .
After months of depressed business due to the pandemic , the hotel was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Republican National Convention this week .
“ This is sort of like a convention extension , ” Rudy Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal .
Trump himself was expected to attend a fundraiser at the hotel on Thursday hours before his convention speech .
Trump ’ s allies appear to be banking ( or at least hedging ) that he will hold onto power : The Trump International Hotel Washington , DC , has no rooms available on Election Day 2020 .
It ’ s also booked for next year ’ s inauguration @

Last fall, the Trump organization dropped an October surprise: It was thinking of selling its luxury DC hotel, a towering, granite symbol of Trump’s takeover of official Washington—and of his unprecedented, for-profit presidency. The timing was notable. It was nearly three years to the day that the Trumps used golden scissors to snip the ribbon on the just-renovated property, housed in a historic, Romanesque Revival–style federal building that had served as DC’s main post office until World War 1. By contract with its landlord, the General Services Administration, this anniversary was the first chance the Trumps had to offload their lease. The proposed price tag: $500 million, one of the highest amounts per room that any hotel has ever commanded.
But why put the hotel on the block now? “People are objecting to us making so much money on the hotel, and therefore we may be willing to sell,” the president’s son Eric told the Wall Street Journal, which broke the story. The hotel had become known as one of Trump’s most brazen conflicts of interest. Yet Eric’s rationale didn’t add up. By his logic, the Trump Organization hoped to halt ethical questions over the hotel by creating a gigantic new conflict of interest, since the motives of any potential buyer would be in question.
A glossy sales brochure that CNN obtained put forth another reason: The hotel wasn’t earning its full potential. As if anticipating questions about why the hotel wasn’t raking in more, the sales pitch claimed the Trumps had lost out on $9 million in revenue in 2019 by not seeking business from foreign governments. (Trump pledged to donate profits from foreign government business to the Treasury when, in 2017, he refused to fully relinquish control of his business empire.) “Tremendous upside potential exists for a new owner to fully capitalize on government related business,” the brochure stated. It wasn’t just here that revenues were lackluster. They were coming up short at a number of Trump businesses—even before the pandemic hit.
November’s election is a definitive moment, not just for Trump’s White House residency but also for his Old Post Office tenancy. If he loses, his prized hotel could easily revert to what it was before his 2016 win—discounted and empty. The sycophants, the Levs and Igors, the One America News Network propagandists, the Nigerian politicians, the America First Action fundraisers, the bankers jetting in from Oklahoma, and the White House staffers and administration alums will be gone. As will the Trump-appointed lackeys at the GSA currently overseeing his lease and approval of its possible sale.
Oh, and Joe Biden will be Trump’s new landlord.
At the hotel’s grand opening on October 26, 2016, less than two weeks before Election Day, Trump boasted that his project was “under budget and ahead of schedule.” Neither claim was quite true, according to a person familiar with the project, but the more dubious assertions were buried in the business plan, which industry experts considered about as realistic as expecting Mexico to underwrite a border wall. Trump’s Old Post Office bid was part of a nine-year stretch, between 2006 and 2014, in which his company spent bigly, often with cash, to acquire 18 properties. When the GSA solicited bids for the property in 2011, Trump offered the agency a higher rent payment than any of his rivals, according to one of those competitors. And his company pledged $200 million to renovate the Old Post Office, $170 million of which was lent by the good folks at Deutsche Bank. That loan and five others—totaling about $479 million—come due over the next four years, creating a possible financial squeeze for the Trump Organization and a whole new ethical morass. Trump committed to pay the GSA $250,000 a month over a 60-year lease, with possible rent increases pegged to the Consumer Price Index. And if undisclosed revenue thresholds were met, the GSA would receive additional payments from Trump, starting at 3 percent of the profits for the first 10 years of the lease and increasing by 0.5 percentage points for five decades thereafter.
The GSA has said the projected room rate for all bidders on the project averaged $626 a night. But to recoup its massive investment, the Trump Organization needed to charge at least $750 a night on average, industry experts calculated, according to the Washington Post. (Ivanka Trump—who, like brothers Don Jr. and Eric, holds a 7.4 percent stake in the project—has disputed that estimate, but she would not share her projections. The Trump Organization did not respond on the record to questions from Mother Jones.)
In its 2012 appeal of the GSA’s decision to go with Trump’s bid, BP-Metropolitan Investors, a rival consortium that included Hilton Worldwide, took both the agency and the Trump Org to task, saying the project couldn’t succeed because the lease payments were too high:
[The] minimum base lease proposed by Trump would require Trump to obtain hotel room revenues which are simply not obtainable in this location based on the concepts for the redevelopment…GSA, instead, improperly scored the Trump proposal and hastily elected to choose the highest ground rent absent a sound economic and business foundation.
The following year, the GSA and Trump, a six-time veteran of hotel bankruptcy proceedings, signed the lease to redevelop the Old Post Office into a luxury hotel.
When the hotel opened three years later, BP-Metropolitan Investors’ prediction that it would be a money pit seemed spot-on. The hotel’s rates during its opening weeks were about $625 a night—$280 more than what other downtown DC luxury hotels were charging, per STR, a data hospitality benchmarking firm. And with that premium, guests were being asked to associate with the brand of a racist, sexist, almost-certain loser. “Trump hotel not worth the trouble for wedding planners, travel agents” a CNN headline declared. Analyses by NBC News and New York magazine found plummeting prices and available rooms on dates when other DC luxury hotels, including the historic Hay-Adams, were sold out or charging higher rates. By the week before the election, room rates at Trump’s new hotel had dropped to $400, Emily Jane Fox reported in Vanity Fair. In her feature on the newly opened hotel, she used the word “empty” six times.
Then its owner became president.
This lesson probably isn’t taught in business school, but it turns out that being elected leader of the free world can buttress even the iffiest business plans. At least for a while.
After Trump’s election, the hotel jacked up its already lofty drink prices (the cheapest cocktail hit $24) and room rates surged back to among the highest in the city. (Mar-a-Lago also capitalized on Trump’s victory, doubling its initiation fee to $200,000.) In a pre-inauguration press conference, Trump made it clear that his word was the only guarantee that he’d wall himself off from his business interests. Further, a revision to his trust documents allowed him to withdraw money at any time from his companies.
The hotel and Trump political entities quickly tag-teamed to establish the business as the social hub of the new president’s realm. Trump’s inaugural committee dished out more than $1 million to the hotel for four days of event-space rentals, an expenditure so grand that after it came to light, the DC attorney general sued the group, alleging it “improperly wasted” nonprofit funds by “grossly overpaying” the hotel. (The case is ongoing.) Undeterred by the troubling optics, top officials, including Cabinet members Steve Mnuchin and Linda McMahon, moved in, briefly making the hotel their weekday residences. Meanwhile, prior to Inauguration Day, the hotel hosted a reception for about 100 foreign diplomats, the Washington Post reported, luring business from overseas governments. The event came before Trump said he would forgo profits from foreign government officials, but the hotel employed a “director of transient and diplomatic sales” until 2018. (The Trump Organization has annually paid over its foreign-government profits to the Treasury, but those figures are unaudited and based on overseas officials self-reporting their visits.)
The Trump Organization had initially projected that its new hotel would lose $2.1 million in the first four months of 2017, per confidential documents the GSA accidentally posted online.
Instead, the company turned a $1.97 million profit.
By Trump’s inauguration, the hotel was firmly entrenched as both a Republican hangout and a way to curry favor with the new president and funnel money into his pocket. Allow Rudy Giuliani’s now-indicted associate and eventual hotel fixture Lev Parnas to explain: “It was like a breeding ground at the Trump Hotel,” he told Rachel Maddow earlier this year. “Every event would be there, so everybody would hang out there afterwards. All the meetings would be there. So it’s basically you would see the same people every day, all the same congressmen that supported the president would be there.”
The hotel became as central to the plotlines of the Trump presidency as the red room was in Twin Peaks. Convening with Parnas and fellow Soviet-born American businessman Igor Fruman, Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani discussed his effort to create Ukrainian dirt on Joe Biden, a scheme that was connected to Trump’s impeachment. White nationalists Richard Spencer and Evan McLaren were seen at the lobby’s Benjamin Bar around the time they were plotting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville—about which Trump infamously declared there were “very fine people on both sides.” In 2017, the hotel hosted a conference aiming to improve US-Turkish business relations, organized by a group whose chair’s company once paid retired Lt. General Michael Flynn more than a half-million for pro-Turkey lobbying that Flynn failed to disclose.
If Trump loses the election, his prized hotel could easily revert to what it was before his 2016 win—discounted and empty.
And it became a regular Instagram backdrop for Beltway Republicans. Most mornings, photos from the hotel would pop up on the social media accounts of junior Hill staffers, lobbyists, and Trump stans “just hangin’ out” with the likes of Giuliani, Kellyanne Conway, and Anthony Scaramucci (for an 11-day stretch anyway). Finding a daily stream of conflicts of interest, I soon made covering the business my full-time beat, launching the 1100 Pennsylvania newsletter in 2018. By scouring social media and camping out in the airy lobby, I’ve published 340 issues documenting Trump’s transactional presidency.
Representatives of at least 31 foreign governments have popped up at the hotel, as have numerous foreign candidates for office and political operatives. To prove he was permitted to enter the United States after being implicated in the 2009 bribery conviction of then-Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), Atiku Abubakar, the main opposition candidate in Nigeria’s 2019 presidential election, stayed at the hotel where he livestreamed a town hall. “You said I cannot step my foot on American soil. Here I am, not only in America, but in the hotel belonging to the president, Donald Trump,” Abubakar reportedly said later. Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo later gave Voice of America an interview from a comfy couch in one of the hotel’s signature suites. The business has also hosted parties for various embassies, including those of Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Philippines.
“If he loses, that hotel goes in the tank. They’ll be broke and we’ll be repossessing it.”
Along with foreign dignitaries and true DC power brokers, the hotel has enjoyed a steady flow of business from lesser swamp things, such as the Fourth of July 2019 gathering of QAnon disciples that included an appearance from the disheveled, fedora-wearing fellow who some Q acolytes believe is JFK Jr. (who staged his death in 1999 to avoid the deep state, natch). In 2018, a self-proclaimed prophet fighting off Trump’s political foes by speaking in tongues convened a three-day conference at the hotel to “focus on real-time prophetic revelation with governmental authority,” whatever that means.
Trump’s revenue (he doesn’t report profit) from the hotel in the first three years of his term topped $121 million. White House staffer (and hotel spa namesake) Ivanka Trump’s take has been more than $11.7 million.
That influx of cash came while many other Trump properties appeared to struggle. Hotels in Toronto and Panama and six buildings in New York that had marketing deals with the Trump Org cut ties; at Trump’s resort in Doral, Florida, income plunged by 69 percent over two years while profits dropped even more dramatically at Trump’s Chicago hotel and tower. His golf clubs in Scotland, meanwhile, have hemorrhaged millions (as another story from this issue details).
The Trump Organization is a private and notoriously secretive company. But as part of its lease with the GSA, the company is required to provide the government with the hotel’s monthly financial statements. At first, the agency shared redacted versions of those documents on its website. But that transparency stopped the month after the tenant became the president (and effectively the landlord). And despite being asked numerous times since, the GSA’s Trump-appointed leadership has refused to provide lawmakers with the hotel’s unredacted financial information unless they pledge not to make it public—even defying a congressional subpoena. The GSA’s public buildings commissioner, Daniel Mathews, however, provided a clue to the hotel’s finances when he testified that the Trump Organization did not pay the agency any funds beyond its base rent in 2018. That meant business wasn’t booming—its gross revenues were below the threshold that would have given taxpayers a cut of the profits. Supposedly. As Mathews also explained, neither the agency nor an independent party audits the hotel’s financial statements. Instead, the US government just takes the Trump Organization at its word, which has not worked out well for many other Trump business partners.
But, anecdotally anyway, it appears that—notwithstanding a surge in the wedding business from Trump administration staffers—the DC hotel is struggling like its counterparts elsewhere. After the initial rush, the only embassy known to have returned to party at the Trump Hotel was Kuwait’s, and even that three-time customer decided not to make it a four-peat in 2020. After hosting two consecutive conferences at the Trump hotel in DC, the Turkish American business confab decamped to the Ritz-Carlton. The Independent Petroleum Association of America, the Institute of International Bankers, and the climate-change-denying Heartland Institute were one-and-done customers. (This summer, Trump twice delayed filing his 2019 personal financial disclosure, temporarily preventing the public from getting a clearer picture of his company’s financial health.)
If you get them in private, some members of Trumpworld’s lesser castes complain about the hotel’s pricy drinks and slow service. They still frequent the business, but it’s more of an obligation than a choice. Some now pregame at a nearby dive bar, called Harry’s, to avoid dropping big bucks at the Benjamin Bar.
And that brings us to October 25, 2019—the day before the third anniversary of the hotel’s grand opening—when the Trump Organization’s contract with the GSA allowed the company to sell the lease and the news broke that the Trumps were planning on doing just that. Despite the eye-popping, half-billion-dollar price tag, there was some initial interest. Entrepreneur Sheila Johnson, the co-founder of BET and the owner of a handful of resorts, confirmed she had her eye on the property. DC developer Brian Friedman thought about making a serious play but decided against it after getting a closer look at the hotel’s financials. “I was really considering bidding heavily, but then another opportunity came up,” he said. “The asset is not performing to where I need to bid. I’m not sure the economics make sense…As I look under the hood, it’s not good news.”
Then COVID-19 hit and the sale of the lease was put on hold. While DC deemed hotels essential businesses exempt from closing, Trump’s was obliged to shutter its bars, steakhouse, conference facilities, and spa, reopening them in stages. As with the rest of the hospitality industry, the pandemic pummeled the Trump Organization, which laid off or furloughed 2,800 employees, including 237 staffers at the DC hotel. The pandemic also created more conflicts. At one point, Trump’s company reached out to the GSA to inquire about getting a break on the hotel’s rent, the New York Times reported. (In May, the GSA said it had not granted any relief because it had not received a formal request from the Trump Organization; the agency declined to respond to questions.) Notable sightings during the lockdown dwindled to Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), in town to protest COVID-19-related closures; supporters of Tiger King’s Joe Exotic, who were seeking a presidential pardon for the imprisoned iconoclast; and a sex worker who Instagrammed a video of herself popping a bottle of champagne on a bed in one of the hotel’s guest rooms. Caption: “Life is so good.”
While much is unique about the president operating a guest lodge down the block from the White House, the arc of Trump’s stewardship of the Old Post Office is largely a replay of his washout with New York’s Plaza Hotel: a highly leveraged acquisition, with a shaky business foundation, that ended up on the market a few years after it opened to great fanfare.
In 1988, after outmaneuvering competitors and assuming millions in debt, Trump secured possession of the iconic landmark positioned on one of America’s most prominent corners. Business bustled early on, with Trump’s connections, real and aspiring, helping fuel a busy events business and lofty room rates.
But the financials underlying Trump’s hefty vanity purchase didn’t work. By 1992 the Plaza Hotel was available for a steal.
As for what happened next—and what it may tell us about the future of Trump’s DC hotel—the Plaza filed for bankruptcy. Valued at just 64 percent of what Trump had paid for it, the celebrated hotel ended up in the hands of creditors. They in turn sold it to two business partners: a billionaire entrepreneur from Singapore and a billionaire prince from Saudi Arabia. “[Trump’s] the only owner to ever bankrupt the hotel in its 112-year history,” said journalist Julie Satow, author of The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel. “And that includes someone who ran the hotel when he was in a prison cell in New Delhi.”
Yes, that backstory, as well as Trump’s five other hotel bankruptcies, had been well reported by the time the Obama-era GSA awarded him possession of the government-owned landmark. And if the agency hadn’t been aware of that history, BP-Metropolitan Investors pointed it out in its appeal of the decision:
Either GSA failed to properly assess the hundreds of publicly accessible records regarding Trump entity bankruptcy and loan defaults related to real estate development projects that Trump had a duty to disclose; or alternatively Trump’s proposal failed to fully disclose these bankruptcies and loan defaults, and hence did not comply with the RFP.
For good measure, the consortium provided the GSA “media and public records regarding Trump bankruptcy, loan defaults, project terminations, and litigation.” The dossier ran 76 pages.
Reelection puts every president’s legacy on the line. But for Trump the financial stakes are almost as great.
“If he loses, that hotel goes in the tank,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) said in January. DeFazio chairs the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, which has oversight of the lease. “They’ll be broke and we’ll be repossessing it,” he said. While the true believers may still congregate at the temple of their “god-emperor,” foreign leaders, lobbyists, GOP lawmakers, industry groups, trade war casualties, the newly unemployed, and onetime Trump supporters who lost loved ones to COVID-19 don’t seem likely to return.
Further, a Biden-helmed GSA’s loyalty would likely be to taxpayers rather than the Trump family. And the agency will have approval over successor tenants, so the vetting process could be far stricter than one undertaken by Trump officials. A de-Trumped GSA might also provide the oversight that Trump’s appointees have failed to do—even retroactively.
“I just hope if there is a Biden administration, it doesn’t adopt the ‘Let’s look forward, not back’ mistake that the Obama administration made with regard to torture,” says Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University’s law school, who specializes in government ethics. One possibility Clark envisions: an independent audit of the hotel’s books from the past four years to see if it did in fact meet the revenue thresholds that would have triggered the profit-sharing clause in its contract.
In August, Trump told the New York Post he’d had second thoughts about putting the hotel on the market. (So much for his pre-inauguration pledge that he would divorce himself from the operations of his business!) “I like it. It does well,” he told the paper. The agent marketing the property declined to comment on Trump’s claim that his company was no longer seeking to sell the property.
If Trump is reelected and does decide to hang onto the hotel, there’s no reason to think the next four years would be much different than the first four. In fact, he wouldn’t even need to pay lip service to ethics obligations. And if his company resumes its search for a buyer for the lease, any bid “other than a bargain-basement or fire-sale-level offer…at this point, must be viewed skeptically and assumed to be driven by something other than bargain forces,” says Steven Schooner, a professor of government procurement law at George Washington University Law School. “Or in other words, a bribe, gift, or something other than what it appears.”
For now, Donald Trump and his family are continuing to cash in. After months of depressed business due to the pandemic, the hotel was buzzing with activity once more during the Republican National Convention this week. “This is sort of like a convention extension,” Rudy Giuliani told the Wall Street Journal. Trump himself was expected to attend a fundraiser at the hotel on Thursday hours before his convention speech. Trump’s allies appear to be banking (or at least hedging) that he will hold onto power: The Trump International Hotel Washington, DC, has no rooms available on Election Day 2020. It’s also booked for next year’s inauguration.


motherjones--2020-08-27--New Hot-Mic Video: What Trump Told His Lawyer When He Didn’t Know a Camera Was Rolling

On December 10 , 2015 , Donald Trump took time off from campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination to spend hours sitting for a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit alleging that he and Trump University had defrauded people who had plunked down thousands of dollars to learn the secrets of his financial success as a developer .
During a break in the proceedings , the camera continued to roll .
And Trump and his attorney , Daniel Petrocelli , apparently unaware they were being recorded , were captured discussing the case .
In this 13-minute hot-mic video—a copy of which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how his company threatened the Better Business Bureau to change the D rating it had assigned Trump University to an A .
He complained about the federal judge overseeing the suit , Gonzalo Curiel , elliptically talking about how to challenge him and referring to “ the Spanish thing.
” Trump also griped that he had been sued personally in this case , and Petrocelli had to explain to Trump that he , not just Trump University itself , was in the legal crosshairs because Trump had been accused of making false statements @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pointed out that the case was not a lock for Trump because some of Trump ’ s “ guys ” had been “ sloppy.
” This tape shows Trump in the wild , trying to figure out how to contend with a judge who he believed was not on his side ( perhaps with the use of a racist attack ) , bragging about pressuring a group that had given his business a low rating , and grousing that he was being held personally responsible for a Trump enterprise accused of scamming people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had to contend with three lawsuits accusing him and Trump University—which was not an accredited as a university—of hoodwinking students who had paid between $ 1,495 and $ 34,995 for real estate seminars .
Trump , who had personally promoted this endeavor and vouched for the instructors ( “ handpicked by me ” ) , vowed that he would never settle the cases , and he succeeded in pushing the trial until after Election Day .
Shortly after the election , Trump settled the lawsuits , agreeing to pay $ 25 million without @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was videotaped , and Curiel granted Trump ’ s request to seal the videotape of the deposition ; only a written transcript was made public .
Trump and Petrocelli seemingly did not realize that a camera was still on while they talked during this break in the question-and-answer session .
Art Cohen , the lead plaintiff in one of two Trump University class-action lawsuits , gave a copy of this recording to Mother Jones .
“ I wanted to get this out before the election so people better understand how Trump behaves behind @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Staying quiet all this time has been frustrating for me , and I wish everybody had gotten the chance to see Trump ’ s behavior as I did before the 2016 election .
With 20/20 vision , we now have the opportunity to better understand his true nature and the gangster persona he shows in this video.
” Cohen maintains that Trump ’ s ability to avoid a trial during the campaign cleared a major political obstacle for him , and he adds , “ The Trump University legal saga is a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump hone his blueprint for attacking the judiciary by publicly berating judges he deems adversarial.
” Mother Jones sent Petrocelli a list of questions about the conversation , which took place with several other people in the room .
In response , Martin Checov , the general counsel of O ’ Melveny & Myers—the law firm where Petrocelli practices—sent a letter to Mother Jones , “ on behalf of Trump University and President Donald J. Trump , ” demanding that Mother Jones “ not publish the video or any article relating to it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump-Petrocelli discussion came after close to six hours of questioning in a Trump Tower conference room that often generated contentious back-and-forth .
In the late afternoon , Jason Forge , an attorney for Cohen and other plaintiffs , asked Trump if he had any “ personal knowledge as to whether the instructors for these [ Trump University ] seminars had any experience buying or selling real estate.
” Trump said he believed they did .
When Forge pressed for a clearer answer , Trump said , “ All I can say is it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to push on this point , asking Trump if he had ever said “ good things ” about people “ even though those things weren ’ t true.
” Petrocelli instructed Trump not to answer .
And Trump , according to the written transcript , taunted Forge , saying , “ Am I frustrating you ?
…Don ’ t get frustrated.
” The session became heated .
Forge demanded that Petrocelli stop waving his finger at him .
Petrocelli called Forge “ an amateur ” and demanded that people in the room “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Petrocelli ’ s blood sugar was low and said to him , “ You ’ re out of control right now.
” Petrocelli ordered Trump to remove the microphone , and a short break ensued .
After the timeout , Petrocelli and Trump returned to the room and took their places at the conference table for what would be the last hour of the deposition .
And for more than 10 minutes , while they waited for the plaintiffs ’ legal team to return , their conversation was recorded .
Trump complained that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in this case .
“ There is a reason for a corporation , ” he told Petrocelli .
Trump added , “ You know I ’ ve got hundreds of cases and I never get sued .
I don ’ t even get sued.
” Petrocelli responded , “ Because they are saying you are personally involved in making false , in making false statements.
” Trump then turned to the subject of Curiel and asked Petrocelli , “ Is he an asshole or does he just want me in his courtroom ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” and said , “ He ’ s an average judge .
He ’ s not nuts .
He ’ s from the wrong side of the aisle , too .
That ’ s not helping.
” Trump replied , “ What about the Spanish thing ?
” It ’ s not clear what Trump was referring to .
But months later , Trump publicly attacked Curiel , calling him “ a hater of Donald Trump ” and saying Curiel “ happens to be , we believe , Mexican.
” Trump claimed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on the US–Mexico border , Curiel was biased against him .
( Curiel was born in Indiana . )
Continuing to discuss Curiel with Petrocelli , Trump referred to an earlier judge involved in the Trump University cases whom he seemed more fond of , adding , “ Then I got this guy .
Nothing !
” Trump asked Petrocelli to assess the odds of winning the case .
“ If we had to try this case I think we would win this case , ” Petrocelli said .
“ I think you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because the jurors like you.
” Trump interrupted , “ You think it ’ s an easy one ?
” The lawyer answered , “ Um , honestly , no…I put it at like about 50 percent.
” A few minutes later , after complaining that the plaintiffs ’ lawyers had not yet returned , Trump asked Petrocelli , “ How ’ s our Barrack man doing ?
” —apparently referring to his friend and ally Tom Barrack , a private equity mogul and Trump fundraiser .
“ He ’ s got a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Petrocelli said .
Trump asked , “ What ’ s that all about ?
When did he get married ?
” Petrocelli answered , “ Got married about a year ago.
” Trump quickly shot back : “ Is she beautiful ?
” And Petrocelli responded , “ Yeah , young .
She ’ s 38 , 37.
” Trump enquired , “ How old is he , 65 ?
” Barrack was then 68 .
“ He gets a kick out of this , ” Trump continued .
“ Can you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bullshit ?
” Petrocelli responded , “ With everything on your mind , I don ’ t know how you ’ re doing this .
I really feel bad for you.
” Trump then returned to Petrocelli ’ s chances of winning the case , asking the lawyer if he would ever tell a client the odds were better than 50 percent .
Petrocelli answered , “ You never go above 70 percent in a case.
” Trump asked , “ Even if it ’ s a lock ?
” There ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attorney explained .
Trump replied , “ You mean , if you think you got a lock , you ’ re not going to tell the client ?
” Petrocelli said he had “ never gone above 75 percent.
” That prompted Trump to tell Petrocelli how he discussed his own chances in the presidential race : “ ‘ What are your chances of getting the nomination ?
’ I said 50 .
Even though I ’ m at 40 .
You understand ?
…I don ’ t want to say , ‘ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ get it . '
” He once again asked Petrocelli to rate the Trump University case .
Petrocelli replied , “ I would rate this above average , but I have had stronger cases…I think the guys under you sort of let you down—a little sloppy.
” Trump said he was optimistic about the case .
“ Can I tell you something ?
Everybody that ’ s involved in this a little bit , they are so professional .
Honestly , [ unintelligible ] .
The other thing is , big charts and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ They walk out with a whole pile of stuff .
I think you ’ ll be okay .
I think better than 50 percent.
” Trump brought up Trump University ’ s run-in with the Better Business Bureau , a private nonprofit organization that reviews businesses and charities and rates them , using a scale of A to F. Shaking his head , he told Petrocelli that the bureau “ gave it a D…a D. You know what that is ?
That ’ s a kill for you.
” But then , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bureau and said , “ We ’ re going to sue you .
[ Unintelligible . ]
An A , got the D removed.
” Explaining this episode , he referred to “ my guy upstairs ” and described him as “ an Alan Garten type , he ’ s tough ” —referring to the Trump Organization ’ s top lawyer .
Petrocelli asked , “ Works for you upstairs ?
” “ Yeah , ” Trump said .
Trump ’ s troubles with the Better Business Bureau would become a campaign issue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presidential debate , Megyn Kelly , then a Fox News host , asked Trump about the Trump University ’ s D- rating .
Trump insisted , “ Right now it is an A.
” ( Trump University had shut down in 2010 . )
During a commercial break , Trump claimed to Fox journalists that the Better Business Bureau had just sent a message affirming the A rating .
But several days later , the BBB said it had not sent any document to the Republican debate .
It noted that Trump University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rating ” and had a “ No Rating ” since 2015 .
“ Prior to that , it fluctuated between D- and A+ , ” the bureau said .
The BBB ’ s statement explained the history of Trump University ’ s rating : “ During the period when Trump University appeared to be active in the marketplace , BBB received multiple customer complaints about this business .
These complaints affected the Trump University BBB rating , which was as low as D- in 2010.
” The bureau noted that after Trump University @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that complaints older than three years “ automatically rolled off ” and “ Trump University ’ s BBB rating went to an A in July 2014 and then to an A+ in January 2015.
” That is , according to the BBB , Trump ’ s business got A ratings years after it had closed .
The Better Business Bureau did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether anyone connected to Trump or Trump University threatened to sue the bureau over the D rating and successfully pressured it to change the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conversation with Petrocelli about the Better Business Bureau grade was cut short , as the deposition resumed .
Petrocelli complained that Forge had kept them waiting .
Forge replied that Petrocelli and Trump had shown up half an hour late , following the earlier lunch break .
“ Eating your free lunch we provided you , ” Petrocelli snapped .
“ I didn ’ t eat it , ” Forge said .
“ You didn ’ t eat ?
” Trump asked .
“ Let ’ s go , ” Petrocelli said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ you some vegetables .
”

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On December 10, 2015, Donald Trump took time off from campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination to spend hours sitting for a videotaped deposition in a lawsuit alleging that he and Trump University had defrauded people who had plunked down thousands of dollars to learn the secrets of his financial success as a developer. During a break in the proceedings, the camera continued to roll. And Trump and his attorney, Daniel Petrocelli, apparently unaware they were being recorded, were captured discussing the case.
In this 13-minute hot-mic video—a copy of which was provided to Mother Jones—Trump boasted about how his company threatened the Better Business Bureau to change the D rating it had assigned Trump University to an A. He complained about the federal judge overseeing the suit, Gonzalo Curiel, elliptically talking about how to challenge him and referring to “the Spanish thing.” Trump also griped that he had been sued personally in this case, and Petrocelli had to explain to Trump that he, not just Trump University itself, was in the legal crosshairs because Trump had been accused of making false statements to promote the venture. And Petrocelli pointed out that the case was not a lock for Trump because some of Trump’s “guys” had been “sloppy.”
This tape shows Trump in the wild, trying to figure out how to contend with a judge who he believed was not on his side (perhaps with the use of a racist attack), bragging about pressuring a group that had given his business a low rating, and grousing that he was being held personally responsible for a Trump enterprise accused of scamming people.
Video Hot-mic video catches Donald Trump during a 2015 deposition:
During the 2016 campaign, Trump had to contend with three lawsuits accusing him and Trump University—which was not an accredited as a university—of hoodwinking students who had paid between $1,495 and $34,995 for real estate seminars. Trump, who had personally promoted this endeavor and vouched for the instructors (“handpicked by me”), vowed that he would never settle the cases, and he succeeded in pushing the trial until after Election Day. Shortly after the election, Trump settled the lawsuits, agreeing to pay $25 million without admitting wrongdoing.
The entire 2015 deposition was videotaped, and Curiel granted Trump’s request to seal the videotape of the deposition; only a written transcript was made public. Trump and Petrocelli seemingly did not realize that a camera was still on while they talked during this break in the question-and-answer session.
Art Cohen, the lead plaintiff in one of two Trump University class-action lawsuits, gave a copy of this recording to Mother Jones. “I wanted to get this out before the election so people better understand how Trump behaves behind the scenes,” Cohen says. “Staying quiet all this time has been frustrating for me, and I wish everybody had gotten the chance to see Trump’s behavior as I did before the 2016 election. With 20/20 vision, we now have the opportunity to better understand his true nature and the gangster persona he shows in this video.” Cohen maintains that Trump’s ability to avoid a trial during the campaign cleared a major political obstacle for him, and he adds, “The Trump University legal saga is a footnote to history, but it helped Trump hone his blueprint for attacking the judiciary by publicly berating judges he deems adversarial.”
Mother Jones sent Petrocelli a list of questions about the conversation, which took place with several other people in the room. In response, Martin Checov, the general counsel of O’Melveny & Myers—the law firm where Petrocelli practices—sent a letter to Mother Jones, “on behalf of Trump University and President Donald J. Trump,” demanding that Mother Jones “not publish the video or any article relating to it and immediately destroy the video.”
The Trump-Petrocelli discussion came after close to six hours of questioning in a Trump Tower conference room that often generated contentious back-and-forth. In the late afternoon, Jason Forge, an attorney for Cohen and other plaintiffs, asked Trump if he had any “personal knowledge as to whether the instructors for these [Trump University] seminars had any experience buying or selling real estate.” Trump said he believed they did. When Forge pressed for a clearer answer, Trump said, “All I can say is it was too long ago.” Forge continued to push on this point, asking Trump if he had ever said “good things” about people “even though those things weren’t true.” Petrocelli instructed Trump not to answer. And Trump, according to the written transcript, taunted Forge, saying, “Am I frustrating you?…Don’t get frustrated.” The session became heated. Forge demanded that Petrocelli stop waving his finger at him. Petrocelli called Forge “an amateur” and demanded that people in the room “stop snickering.” Forge wondered aloud if Petrocelli’s blood sugar was low and said to him, “You’re out of control right now.” Petrocelli ordered Trump to remove the microphone, and a short break ensued.
After the timeout, Petrocelli and Trump returned to the room and took their places at the conference table for what would be the last hour of the deposition. And for more than 10 minutes, while they waited for the plaintiffs’ legal team to return, their conversation was recorded. Trump complained that he was being sued “personally” in this case. “There is a reason for a corporation,” he told Petrocelli. Trump added, “You know I’ve got hundreds of cases and I never get sued. I don’t even get sued.” Petrocelli responded, “Because they are saying you are personally involved in making false, in making false statements.”
Trump then turned to the subject of Curiel and asked Petrocelli, “Is he an asshole or does he just want me in his courtroom?” The lawyer answered, “Latter,” and said, “He’s an average judge. He’s not nuts. He’s from the wrong side of the aisle, too. That’s not helping.” Trump replied, “What about the Spanish thing?” It’s not clear what Trump was referring to. But months later, Trump publicly attacked Curiel, calling him “a hater of Donald Trump” and saying Curiel “happens to be, we believe, Mexican.” Trump claimed that because he proposed building a wall on the US–Mexico border, Curiel was biased against him. (Curiel was born in Indiana.)
Continuing to discuss Curiel with Petrocelli, Trump referred to an earlier judge involved in the Trump University cases whom he seemed more fond of, adding, “Then I got this guy. Nothing!”
Trump asked Petrocelli to assess the odds of winning the case. “If we had to try this case I think we would win this case,” Petrocelli said. “I think you’re a big reason why, because the jurors like you.” Trump interrupted, “You think it’s an easy one?” The lawyer answered, “Um, honestly, no…I put it at like about 50 percent.”
Video David Corn breaks down the full Trump ‘hot-mic’ tape, moment by moment:
A few minutes later, after complaining that the plaintiffs’ lawyers had not yet returned, Trump asked Petrocelli, “How’s our Barrack man doing?”—apparently referring to his friend and ally Tom Barrack, a private equity mogul and Trump fundraiser. “He’s got a new bride, couple new kids,” Petrocelli said. Trump asked, “What’s that all about? When did he get married?” Petrocelli answered, “Got married about a year ago.” Trump quickly shot back: “Is she beautiful?” And Petrocelli responded, “Yeah, young. She’s 38, 37.” Trump enquired, “How old is he, 65?” Barrack was then 68. “He gets a kick out of this,” Trump continued. “Can you believe this? Sitting here with this bullshit?” Petrocelli responded, “With everything on your mind, I don’t know how you’re doing this. I really feel bad for you.”
Trump then returned to Petrocelli’s chances of winning the case, asking the lawyer if he would ever tell a client the odds were better than 50 percent. Petrocelli answered, “You never go above 70 percent in a case.” Trump asked, “Even if it’s a lock?”
There’s always an “X-Factor,” the attorney explained. Trump replied, “You mean, if you think you got a lock, you’re not going to tell the client?” Petrocelli said he had “never gone above 75 percent.” That prompted Trump to tell Petrocelli how he discussed his own chances in the presidential race: “‘What are your chances of getting the nomination?’ I said 50. Even though I’m at 40. You understand?…I don’t want to say, ‘Oh, I’m going to get it.'” He once again asked Petrocelli to rate the Trump University case. Petrocelli replied, “I would rate this above average, but I have had stronger cases…I think the guys under you sort of let you down—a little sloppy.”
Trump said he was optimistic about the case. “Can I tell you something? Everybody that’s involved in this a little bit, they are so professional. Honestly, [unintelligible]. The other thing is, big charts and the books and the whole thing. They walk out with a whole pile of stuff. I think you’ll be okay. I think better than 50 percent.”
Trump brought up Trump University’s run-in with the Better Business Bureau, a private nonprofit organization that reviews businesses and charities and rates them, using a scale of A to F. Shaking his head, he told Petrocelli that the bureau “gave it a D…a D. You know what that is? That’s a kill for you.” But then, Trump noted, someone called the Better Business Bureau and said, “We’re going to sue you. [Unintelligible.] An A, got the D removed.” Explaining this episode, he referred to “my guy upstairs” and described him as “an Alan Garten type, he’s tough”—referring to the Trump Organization’s top lawyer. Petrocelli asked, “Works for you upstairs?” “Yeah,” Trump said.
Trump’s troubles with the Better Business Bureau would become a campaign issue three months later. During a Republican presidential debate, Megyn Kelly, then a Fox News host, asked Trump about the Trump University’s D- rating. Trump insisted, “Right now it is an A.” (Trump University had shut down in 2010.) During a commercial break, Trump claimed to Fox journalists that the Better Business Bureau had just sent a message affirming the A rating. But several days later, the BBB said it had not sent any document to the Republican debate. It noted that Trump University “does not currently have an A rating” and had a “No Rating” since 2015. “Prior to that, it fluctuated between D- and A+,” the bureau said.
The BBB’s statement explained the history of Trump University’s rating: “During the period when Trump University appeared to be active in the marketplace, BBB received multiple customer complaints about this business. These complaints affected the Trump University BBB rating, which was as low as D- in 2010.” The bureau noted that after Trump University closed there were no new complaints and that complaints older than three years “automatically rolled off” and “Trump University’s BBB rating went to an A in July 2014 and then to an A+ in January 2015.” That is, according to the BBB, Trump’s business got A ratings years after it had closed.
The Better Business Bureau did not respond to a request for comment regarding whether anyone connected to Trump or Trump University threatened to sue the bureau over the D rating and successfully pressured it to change the rating to an A.
Trump’s conversation with Petrocelli about the Better Business Bureau grade was cut short, as the deposition resumed. Petrocelli complained that Forge had kept them waiting. Forge replied that Petrocelli and Trump had shown up half an hour late, following the earlier lunch break. “Eating your free lunch we provided you,” Petrocelli snapped. “I didn’t eat it,” Forge said.
“You didn’t eat?” Trump asked. “Let’s go,” Petrocelli said. “Next time we’ll get you some vegetables.”
Here’s the full hot-mic video:


motherjones--2020-08-27--Betsy DeVos Rewrote Campus Sexual Assault Rules, But Survivor Activists Aren’t Backing Down

Frances Kendrick , a 18-year-old pre-nursing student at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University , was scrolling through Instagram this spring when a post caught her attention .
A black-and-red graphic , posted by the sexual assault survivor advocacy group Know Your IX , warned that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was about to institute new regulations that would reduce schools ’ responsibility to respond to sexual misconduct among their students .
Kendrick , who had made a sexual assault report to her school months earlier , was alarmed that the new rules would eliminate the 60-day timeframe for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ still dragging on , and she felt unsupported by NC A & T , a historically Black public university .
“ I automatically made that connection , ” she says .
“ Like , oh hell , if this is how they ’ re treating us now , wait ’ til they actually don ’ t have to be accountable.
” The panel convened to hear Kendrick ’ s case ultimately found the other student not responsible , and her appeal was denied .
But Kendrick was already beginning to organize .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ place over Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic—she wrote an open letter a friend posted on Twitter .
“ I went to an HBCU because I wanted to live in a space where I was cared for , ” she wrote .
“ But it is clear that this school does not care about me as a survivor.
” She started a group , Aggies Without Fear , and launched an online petition demanding the school to go “ above and beyond ” the requirements in DeVos ’ new rules , which let @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prompt ” time .
Kendrick ’ s letter asks for investigations and hearings to be conducted within 30 days ; her own case had taken nearly 200 .
( NC A & T associate vice chancellor Todd Simmons declined to comment on Kendrick ’ s case due to federal privacy laws . )
Students have always been the drivers of the movement against sexual violence in schools .
Title IX , the federal law banning sex discrimination in education , has been their most powerful tool since 1992 , when the Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her school for not intervening after she reported being harassed and sexually abused by a teacher .
But anti-rape advocates say much of the law ’ s utility to survivors has been undercut by the Trump administration ’ s reinterpretation of Title IX , which took effect on August 14 .
Now , as campuses across the country must adapt to the new rules while grappling with the coronavirus pandemic , students like Kendrick are adapting as well , looking for new ways to pressure their schools to assist students at all levels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Historically , we viewed Title IX as a great tool to improve campus policies , ” Sage Carson , the manager of Know Your IX , told nearly 200 victim advocates and students during a webinar about the new regulations last week .
“ Now , it ’ s a bit more figuring out how to get around Title IX.
” Trying to get school administrators ’ attention while many students are not physically on campus also presents a new challenge for activists .
“ Often survivors have to use interruptive tactics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Carson says in an interview .
“ They need to occupy buildings .
They have to make noise on campus .
They have to make themselves a nuisance for schools to even listen to them .
And it ’ s much harder to make yourself a nuisance when someone can simply block your emails , or when someone can just ignore your phone calls.
” DeVos ’ new regulations follow nearly a decade of activism , conflict , and backlash over campus sexual assault policy .
Survivors-turned-advocates have filed a wave of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Office for Civil Rights and pressured the department to hold schools accountable for violating the law .
They found a sympathetic ear in the Obama White House , which launched a national task force on campus sexual assault and issued guidance on how schools could respond “ promptly and equitably ” to sexual misconduct complaints .
Many colleges and universities began taking sexual assault and harassment more seriously , changing or adopting new policies to address it .
But the momentum shifted after President Donald Trump took office .
DeVos quickly pulled the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they had gone too far in complainants ’ favor and had created a system that “ lacked basic elements of due process and failed to ensure fundamental fairness.
” She issued new temporary guidelines followed by proposed regulations that reduced schools ’ legal obligations to respond to survivors , in part by narrowing the definition of sexual harassment .
The regulations were framed as a way to ensure fairness for both survivors and students accused of sexual misconduct .
They required colleges to adopt live , courtroom-like sexual misconduct hearings in which an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the complainant .
A recent investigation in the Nation found the rules were partially written by the main funder behind the men ’ s rights group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments , which pushes the untrue narrative that false sexual assault allegations are rampant .
The final rules were met with fierce opposition from survivor advocates .
“ Students should have a right to receive an education free from violence , and not have to be tangled up in incompetent , really half-assed , dangerous rules that protect no one , ” says @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Rape on Campus .
Multiple groups , including the ACLU as well as attorneys general in 17 states and Washington , DC , sued the Education Department to stop the new regulations from taking effect .
Federal judges blocked their attempts earlier this month .
Now colleges and universities are rolling out new Title IX policies to comply with the administration ’ s requirements .
Some , such as Harvard and Princeton , established two separate processes for handling claims : one that covers the Education Department ’ s new , narrower definitions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ everything the new regulations do not cover , such as sexual assault on study abroad trips .
NC A & T ’ s interim sexual misconduct policy , announced on August 14 , hews closely to the new regulations , though it adds that sexual misconduct may also be covered by other campus policies governing workplace violence , harassment , and discrimination .
Still , some schools have not announced any changes , according to Carson .
There ’ s still a lot of uncertainty about what exactly is required by the new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ final form three months ago along with about 2,000 pages of accompanying legalese , sending college administrators scrambling .
“ My impression is , everybody ’ s trying to write the paper and get it in on time , ” one Title IX coordinator told the Chronicle of Higher Education .
Student activists like Kendrick have tried to influence this process by pressuring their schools to go beyond what ’ s required of them .
For instance , DeVos ’ rules permit , but do not require , that schools use a higher @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; Aggies Without Fear ’ s petition asked NC A & T to opt for the Obama-era standard .
At Carnegie Mellon University , the Graduate Student Assembly has been negotiating with the Title IX office for months , says Divyansh Kaushik , the assembly ’ s vice president for external affairs .
Kaushik , a language technologies grad student , is concerned that the DeVos regulations do not cover violence or harassment in off-campus housing .
( All 7,500 Carnegie Mellon grad students live off-campus . )
Even though some school administrators @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Title IX under the DeVos rules , the Education Department will no longer hold the schools accountable if they mishandle those cases .
To Carson , this is a major setback .
“ The reason that survivors have fought so deeply for Title IX is because schools haven ’ t done the right thing in the past , ” she says .
“ Now we ’ re met with a really messy , complicated Title IX that is weak around enforcement , weak on survivor protections , and only requires schools to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can use that to demand that their school do that absolute bare minimum , that ’ s not exactly helpful for most people.
” Rather than focusing on Title IX , student survivors may begin turning to other laws .
During last week ’ s webinar , National Women ’ s Law Center director of justice for student survivors and senior counsel Shiwali Patel pointed to the Clery Act , a federal law governing campus safety .
Public Justice staff attorney Alexandra Brodsky suggested that survivors who need accommodations from their schools might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” tools than Title IX , particularly if they experience post-traumatic stress disorder .
Parham , who plans to focus End Rape on Campus ’ s work on supporting survivors who have been marginalized because of their backgrounds or identities , says that advocates need to think more seriously about using other federal anti-discrimination laws .
At least 20 states already have laws that require schools to provide services to survivors , mandate sexual assault prevention programs , or govern responses to reports of harassment or violence .
According to Carson , state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a time when survivors feel abandoned by the Education Department .
Know Your IX is recruiting students to push for new state-level sexual assault laws across the country .
A group of current students and young alumni called the Every Voice Coalition has written bills that have been introduced by lawmakers in several states .
“ Once it became clear that this DeVos administration was not going to be listening to students and survivors , we took the only recourse we could think of , which was to push for stronger protections at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Gabrieli , Every Voice ’ s co-chair .
“ Fortunately , the one silver lining with these regulations is that they ’ re a floor , not a ceiling , for what states can do.
” In July , Gov .
Chris Sununu signed Every Voice ’ s bill into law in New Hampshire .
The group plans to introduce similar legislation in Maine , Nevada , New Mexico , and Virginia .
This spring , shortly after Gabrieli quit his job to work on Every Voice full-time , the pandemic sent students @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says , “ totally crushed our legislative momentum.
” At NC A & T , Kendrick , who just moved back into her apartment on campus , is figuring out how to continue building Aggies Without Fear despite social distancing .
Last Friday , she received a response from the school to her petition ; it said that parts of its newly issued interim Title IX policy already go “ above and beyond ” DeVos ’ minimum requirements .
It also offered to listen to her feedback .
Simmons wrote in an email @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an environment that is free from sexual misconduct and violence and that supports survivors , as well as respects due process , ” and that it would be working to improve through “ listening sessions ” with students .
Kendrick is trying to keep up the pressure , using social media to push out information about Title IX and campus sexual assault while negotiating with the school .
“ Our goal is to say , regardless of COVID , regardless of where your students are , ” Kendrick says , “ you still @ @ @ @ @ @

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Frances Kendrick, a 18-year-old pre-nursing student at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, was scrolling through Instagram this spring when a post caught her attention. A black-and-red graphic, posted by the sexual assault survivor advocacy group Know Your IX, warned that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was about to institute new regulations that would reduce schools’ responsibility to respond to sexual misconduct among their students. Kendrick, who had made a sexual assault report to her school months earlier, was alarmed that the new rules would eliminate the 60-day timeframe for investigating reports; her own case was still dragging on, and she felt unsupported by NC A&T, a historically Black public university. “I automatically made that connection,” she says. “Like, oh hell, if this is how they’re treating us now, wait ’til they actually don’t have to be accountable.”
The panel convened to hear Kendrick’s case ultimately found the other student not responsible, and her appeal was denied. But Kendrick was already beginning to organize. The day after her hearing in June—which took place over Zoom due to the COVID-19 pandemic—she wrote an open letter a friend posted on Twitter. “I went to an HBCU because I wanted to live in a space where I was cared for,” she wrote. “But it is clear that this school does not care about me as a survivor.”
She started a group, Aggies Without Fear, and launched an online petition demanding the school to go “above and beyond” the requirements in DeVos’ new rules, which let schools resolve cases within a “reasonably prompt” time. Kendrick’s letter asks for investigations and hearings to be conducted within 30 days; her own case had taken nearly 200. (NC A&T associate vice chancellor Todd Simmons declined to comment on Kendrick’s case due to federal privacy laws.)
Students have always been the drivers of the movement against sexual violence in schools. Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education, has been their most powerful tool since 1992, when the Supreme Court ruled that a 10th grader could sue her school for not intervening after she reported being harassed and sexually abused by a teacher. But anti-rape advocates say much of the law’s utility to survivors has been undercut by the Trump administration’s reinterpretation of Title IX, which took effect on August 14. Now, as campuses across the country must adapt to the new rules while grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, students like Kendrick are adapting as well, looking for new ways to pressure their schools to assist students at all levels who endure sexual abuse or harassment.
“Historically, we viewed Title IX as a great tool to improve campus policies. Now, it’s a bit more figuring out how to get around Title IX.”
“Historically, we viewed Title IX as a great tool to improve campus policies,” Sage Carson, the manager of Know Your IX, told nearly 200 victim advocates and students during a webinar about the new regulations last week. “Now, it’s a bit more figuring out how to get around Title IX.”
Trying to get school administrators’ attention while many students are not physically on campus also presents a new challenge for activists. “Often survivors have to use interruptive tactics to get schools to pay attention,” Carson says in an interview. “They need to occupy buildings. They have to make noise on campus. They have to make themselves a nuisance for schools to even listen to them. And it’s much harder to make yourself a nuisance when someone can simply block your emails, or when someone can just ignore your phone calls.”
DeVos’ new regulations follow nearly a decade of activism, conflict, and backlash over campus sexual assault policy. Survivors-turned-advocates have filed a wave of complaints with the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights and pressured the department to hold schools accountable for violating the law. They found a sympathetic ear in the Obama White House, which launched a national task force on campus sexual assault and issued guidance on how schools could respond “promptly and equitably” to sexual misconduct complaints. Many colleges and universities began taking sexual assault and harassment more seriously, changing or adopting new policies to address it.
But the momentum shifted after President Donald Trump took office. DeVos quickly pulled the Obama-era Title IX guidelines, declaring that they had gone too far in complainants’ favor and had created a system that “lacked basic elements of due process and failed to ensure fundamental fairness.” She issued new temporary guidelines followed by proposed regulations that reduced schools’ legal obligations to respond to survivors, in part by narrowing the definition of sexual harassment.
The regulations were framed as a way to ensure fairness for both survivors and students accused of sexual misconduct. They required colleges to adopt live, courtroom-like sexual misconduct hearings in which an accused abuser’s advisor—or attorney—could cross-examine the complainant. A recent investigation in the Nation found the rules were partially written by the main funder behind the men’s rights group Stop Abusive and Violent Environments, which pushes the untrue narrative that false sexual assault allegations are rampant.
The final rules were met with fierce opposition from survivor advocates. “Students should have a right to receive an education free from violence, and not have to be tangled up in incompetent, really half-assed, dangerous rules that protect no one,” says Kenyora Parham, executive director of End Rape on Campus. Multiple groups, including the ACLU as well as attorneys general in 17 states and Washington, DC, sued the Education Department to stop the new regulations from taking effect. Federal judges blocked their attempts earlier this month.
Now colleges and universities are rolling out new Title IX policies to comply with the administration’s requirements. Some, such as Harvard and Princeton, established two separate processes for handling claims: one that covers the Education Department’s new, narrower definitions of prohibited conduct, and another for everything the new regulations do not cover, such as sexual assault on study abroad trips. NC A&T’s interim sexual misconduct policy, announced on August 14, hews closely to the new regulations, though it adds that sexual misconduct may also be covered by other campus policies governing workplace violence, harassment, and discrimination.
“Students should have a right to receive an education free from violence, and not have to be tangled up in incompetent, really half-assed, dangerous rules that protect no one.”
Still, some schools have not announced any changes, according to Carson. There’s still a lot of uncertainty about what exactly is required by the new rules, which were released in their final form three months ago along with about 2,000 pages of accompanying legalese, sending college administrators scrambling. “My impression is, everybody’s trying to write the paper and get it in on time,” one Title IX coordinator told the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Student activists like Kendrick have tried to influence this process by pressuring their schools to go beyond what’s required of them. For instance, DeVos’ rules permit, but do not require, that schools use a higher standard of evidence in sexual assault hearings; Aggies Without Fear’s petition asked NC A&T to opt for the Obama-era standard. At Carnegie Mellon University, the Graduate Student Assembly has been negotiating with the Title IX office for months, says Divyansh Kaushik, the assembly’s vice president for external affairs. Kaushik, a language technologies grad student, is concerned that the DeVos regulations do not cover violence or harassment in off-campus housing. (All 7,500 Carnegie Mellon grad students live off-campus.)
Even though some school administrators may choose to investigate cases not covered by Title IX under the DeVos rules, the Education Department will no longer hold the schools accountable if they mishandle those cases. To Carson, this is a major setback. “The reason that survivors have fought so deeply for Title IX is because schools haven’t done the right thing in the past,” she says. “Now we’re met with a really messy, complicated Title IX that is weak around enforcement, weak on survivor protections, and only requires schools to do the bare minimum. While survivors can use that to demand that their school do that absolute bare minimum, that’s not exactly helpful for most people.”
Rather than focusing on Title IX, student survivors may begin turning to other laws. During last week’s webinar, National Women’s Law Center director of justice for student survivors and senior counsel Shiwali Patel pointed to the Clery Act, a federal law governing campus safety. Public Justice staff attorney Alexandra Brodsky suggested that survivors who need accommodations from their schools might find disability discrimination laws “more powerful” tools than Title IX, particularly if they experience post-traumatic stress disorder. Parham, who plans to focus End Rape on Campus’s work on supporting survivors who have been marginalized because of their backgrounds or identities, says that advocates need to think more seriously about using other federal anti-discrimination laws.
At least 20 states already have laws that require schools to provide services to survivors, mandate sexual assault prevention programs, or govern responses to reports of harassment or violence. According to Carson, state legislation offers a lot of promise at a time when survivors feel abandoned by the Education Department. Know Your IX is recruiting students to push for new state-level sexual assault laws across the country. A group of current students and young alumni called the Every Voice Coalition has written bills that have been introduced by lawmakers in several states.
“Once it became clear that this DeVos administration was not going to be listening to students and survivors, we took the only recourse we could think of, which was to push for stronger protections at the state level,” says John Gabrieli, Every Voice’s co-chair. “Fortunately, the one silver lining with these regulations is that they’re a floor, not a ceiling, for what states can do.” In July, Gov. Chris Sununu signed Every Voice’s bill into law in New Hampshire. The group plans to introduce similar legislation in Maine, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia.
This spring, shortly after Gabrieli quit his job to work on Every Voice full-time, the pandemic sent students and lawmakers home. COVID-19, he says, “totally crushed our legislative momentum.” At NC A&T, Kendrick, who just moved back into her apartment on campus, is figuring out how to continue building Aggies Without Fear despite social distancing. Last Friday, she received a response from the school to her petition; it said that parts of its newly issued interim Title IX policy already go “above and beyond” DeVos’ minimum requirements. It also offered to listen to her feedback. Simmons wrote in an email that the school “strives to create an environment that is free from sexual misconduct and violence and that supports survivors, as well as respects due process,” and that it would be working to improve through “listening sessions” with students.
Kendrick is trying to keep up the pressure, using social media to push out information about Title IX and campus sexual assault while negotiating with the school. “Our goal is to say, regardless of COVID, regardless of where your students are,” Kendrick says, “you still are accountable to us. “