As construction begins on President Donald Trump’s new, $250m (£149m) White House ballroom, mystery continues to swirl around the identities of the wealthy donors and corporations paying for it.
Groundbreaking for the ornate 90,000 sq ft (8,360 sq m) project began on Monday, with excavators and construction workers tearing out portions of the East Wing.
The US president has said that he personally will pay for significant portions of its construction, and suggested that some still anonymous donors would be willing to spend more than $20m to complete the project.
The funding model has sparked concern among some legal experts, who say it may amount to paying for access to the administration.
“I view this enormous ballroom as an ethics nightmare,” Richard Painter, a former chief ethics lawyer in the Bush White House between 2005 and 2007, told the BBC.
“It’s using access to the White House to raise money. I don’t like it,” he added. “These corporations all want something from the government.”
A dinner for potential donors held at the White House on 15 October included senior executives from prominent American companies including Blackstone, OpenAI, Microsoft, Coinbase, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Amazon and Google.
Also present was Woody Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets NFL team, and Shari and Edward Glazer, who, together with their siblings, own both the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Manchester United.
Only one contributor has so far been revealed.
Court documents show that YouTube will pay $22m towards the project as part of a settlement with Trump regarding a lawsuit over the suspension of his account following the 6 January 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
It is unclear, however, how many of the rest of those in attendance have pledged to donate, or how much. An official list has yet to be published, although White House officials say they plan to reveal the one.
Documents obtained by CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, indicate that the donations will be handled by the Trust for the National Mall, a non-profit that works with the National Park Service and fundraises for projects on the Mall and at the White House.
At the event for potential donors, Trump said many of the attendees had been “really, really generous” and said some had asked whether $25m was an appropriate donation.
“I said: I will take it,” Trump remarked.
The White House has insisted there is nothing inappropriate in soliciting donations and that the ballroom will be used by future administrations.
But Mr Painter suggested it could be considered a “pay-to-play scheme”, which has dogged previous White House administrations of both political parties.
In the 1990s, for example, then-President Bill Clinton came under scrutiny for allegedly selling overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions.
More recently, Trump sought corporate sponsors for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll in April, which some said could amount to companies vying for the president’s attention.
Trump and administration officials have said that the new ballroom is a necessary rennovation given the lack of large existing facilities to hold state dinners and other events. The White House often uses a tent on the South Lawn to fete foreign leaders and a larger guest list for a state dinner.
But the scale of the new ballroom, Mr Painter added, poses an “enormous temptation” to use the facility for political fundraising that was not the case before, even if presidents from both parties have invited supporters to events.
“The limited space [now] means that not everyone gets a White House invitation,” he said. “In my view, that’s a good thing….the [current] size limits the ‘pay to play’ game, at least on White House premises.”
Proving any wrongdoing, however, is unlikely.
“You can’t prove a quid pro quo,” Mr Painter said. “But I think the Trump administration is pushing the envelope here.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: BBC
