New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) subpoenaed the General Services Administration for information about how the agency selected former President Donald Trump’s business to lease the historic post office where he developed his D.C. hotel, according to two people familiar with the request.
The inquiry, part of a civil investigation into Trump’s business, sought information about whether Trump inflated his net worth to secure the lease, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing legal inquiry.
The documents James sought included a scorecard GSA used to rank Trump’s bid against those of other developers who proposed leasing and redeveloping the federally owned Old Post Office Pavilion downtown. That information could fit into James’s broader effort to show a pattern of Trump giving false information to business partners, banks and insurers to secure loans and other deals.
James’s request appears to differ from previous inquiries into Trump’s hotel, which largely focused on whether he should have been allowed to retain the deal while in office. After Trump was elected, he ignored calls from Democrats to sell his stake in the lease to avoid conflicts of interest.
Trump is now working to sell that lease, in a deal that could net his company $100 million in profits, and the negotiations have coincided with renewed scrutiny from lawmakers and prosecutors.
In October, the House Oversight Committee, chaired by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), issued a report raising concerns about whether Trump had misled the GSA in pursuing the deal. Maloney and Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) wrote to GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan alleging that Trump “concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts from GSA when bidding on the Old Post Office Building lease” and called for an investigation.
Connolly said in a recent interview that he wasn’t content to let the issue go.
“If he walks away from this laughing all the way to the bank with a $100 million profit, we will have debased the whole concept of enforcing conflict of interests laws and ethics,” he said.
As part of his bid for the GSA lease, Trump submitted statements of financial condition, according to a recent filing from James’s office and documents released by the House Oversight Committee. James alleged that in doing so, Trump and his daughter Ivanka — at the time an executive at his company who oversaw the project — won the hotel lease in part by providing the government with false financial information.
Ivanka Trump submitted the Trump Organization’s proposal and presented it on behalf of the company. James’s office noted in its filing that the “presentation and the associated bid explicitly incorporated the Statement of Financial Condition of Donald J. Trump.”
James alleged that the Trump Organization informed the GSA in its presentation that: “Trump’s real estate investments are funded from Donald J. Trump’s significant net worth, which is composed of a wide range of capitalized affiliates. Please find Trump’s Statement of Financial Condition in an envelope submitted with each copy of this proposal.”
Trump and representatives of his company did not immediately return a request for comment. They have said they won the project on the merits of their bid and have painted James as a partisan official who decided to pursue a case against Trump before she took office in 2019. Her allegations “are baseless and will be vigorously defended” the company said on Jan. 19, after James alleged in the filing that the company had routinely inflated the value of Trump’s properties. Trump has also sued James in response.
In recent filings, James’s office asked a federal judge to throw out Trump’s suit and refuse to halt the progress of her civil probe. “The public interest is served by having [the AG’s office] continue its Investigation into allegations of fraud and misrepresentation in Trump’s financial statements provided to financial institutions and the government,” one of the filings read.
James’s office declined to comment on the GSA subpoena. She is pursuing a separate criminal inquiry into the Trump Organization with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D).
A GSA spokeswoman declined to comment. The GSA’s inspector general found in 2019 that the agency should have considered constitutional issues in managing the lease.
As Trump seeks to sell his lease, the GSA must approve the deal to ensure the buyer has the balance sheet and management experience required to take on such a property. There has been no indication that either James’s inquiry or the committee’s report would affect that review.
Along with its report in October, the committee also released some documents that the Trump Organization submitted to the GSA. They include three of Trump’s statements of financial condition, from 2008, 2009, and 2010, which appear to include inaccurate or misleading financial information that inflated the value of his assets. The GSA scorecard, which is among the key documents James has demanded, was not included in that report.
For instance, Trump’s 2008 statement claims that his Seven Springs estate in Westchester County, N.Y., was “zoned for 25 luxurious townhomes” and was worth $200 million “based on an assessment made by Mr. Trump in conjunction with his associates and outside professionals.” In fact, Trump has failed to get the property zoned for luxury homes and none have been built there.
The GSA had told bidders that all financial statements they submitted “must be in accordance with” professional accounting standards, according to the House documents. Trump’s statements included cover letters from his accounting firm saying his statements did not meet such standards.
Trump Organization spokeswoman Kimberly Benza responded to the committee’s allegations with a statement saying the Trumps “have been great custodians of this iconic building, continue to have a great relationship with the GSA and are in full compliance with our leasehold obligations.”
GSA selected Trump for the project in 2012, and the hotel opened in late 2016.
