The Trump Organization and the Presidential Inaugural Committee reached a $750,000 settlement with the Washington, D.C., attorney general’s office to resolve a lawsuit by the city that alleged the committee overpaid for events at the former president’s hotel.
D.C. attorney general Karl Racine said the city will split the funds from the settlement among local youth-focused nonprofits Mikva Challenge DC and DC Action.
“With our lawsuit, we are now clawing back money that Trump’s own inaugural committee misused,” Racine said in a statement. “We’re giving it to District nonprofits that will use those funds to help support civic engagement for the next generation of District leaders. No one is above the law—not even a president.”
The agreement says the case is being resolved “to avoid the cost, burden, and risks of further litigation” and that the organizations “dispute these allegations on numerous grounds and deny having engaged in any wrongdoing or unlawful conduct.”
Trump in a statement denied any wrongdoing.
“As crime rates are soaring in our Nation’s Capital, it is necessary that the Attorney General focus on those issues rather than a further leg of the greatest Witch-Hunt in political history,” he said in a statement. “This was yet another example of weaponizing Law Enforcement against the Republican Party and, in particular, the former President of the United States.”
Racine has said the committee misused nonprofit funds and coordinated with the hotel’s management and members of the Trump family to arrange the events. Racine said one of the event’s planners raised concerns about pricing with Trump, the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump and Rick Gates, a top campaign official at the time.
The committee has maintained that its finances were independently audited, and that all money was spent in accordance with the law. The committee raised an unprecedented $107 million to host events celebrating Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. But the committee’s spending drew mounting scrutiny.
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.
Solange Reyner ✉
Solange Reyner is a writer and editor for Newsmax. She has more than 15 years in the journalism industry reporting and covering news, sports and politics.
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