Donald Trump Has Spent A Lot Of His Presidency At Trump-Owned Properties

Ethics groups have said that his visits to his golf clubs and hotels create the appearance of promoting his private businesses while holding public office.
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President Donald Trump is spending the holidays at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, continuing a pattern that has created questions of conflicts of interest.

Trump began his day at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday, then headed to his nearby golf club, according to a White House pool report. This marks his 85th day at a golf club and 111th day at a Trump-owned property since taking office, according to NBC News, which is among several news organizations that have tracked the president’s time visiting his golf clubs and hotels.

Trump has spent nearly one-third of his first year in office at a Trump-owned property, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, often at Mar-a-Lago or at his golf clubs in New Jersey and Virginia.

Ethics groups have raised concerns that Trump visiting his own properties creates the appearance that he’s promoting his private businesses while holding public office. Last week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit from the ethics watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which alleged that Trump’s properties were in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause.

Trump has used his properties for official government business, such as hosting state dinners for world leaders at Mar-a-Lago. He also hosted a re-election fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Washington earlier this year, and foreign diplomats have held events there to potentially curry favor with his administration.

Many of Trump’s visits to his properties have included playing golf, even though he used to chastise his predecessor, Barack Obama, for golfing while in office.

Unlike the Obama White House, the Trump administration has lacked transparency in regard to the president’s golf habits. Administration officials have sometimes refused to name the people with whom Trump played golf, or have refused to confirm whether he even played golf that day — even as visitors to his clubs have posted photos on social media showing the president on the course.

While en route to his golf club Tuesday, Trump’s motorcade passed “a lone protestor right outside the golf club, a woman holding a hand-made cardboard cut out of Trump’s face with the text ‘Pants on Fire,’” according to the White House pool report.

Before his golf outing, Trump began the day by firing off a few early morning tweets, including one falsely claiming that he has “essentially” repealed Obamacare “over time,” and one attacking the FBI as “TAINTED,” in response to a “Fox & Friends” segment.

Trump celebrated Christmas the previous day, tweeting that “tomorrow it’s back to work in order to Make America Great Again (which is happening faster than anyone anticipated)!”

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Before You Go

Donald Trump's 2017
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Trump throws rolls of paper towels into a crowd of Puerto Rico residents affected by Hurricane Maria as he visits Calgary Chapel in San Juan on Oct. 3. (credit:Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Trump reacts as he sits in a truck on March 23 while welcoming truckers and CEOs to attend a meeting at the White House regarding health care. (credit:Carlos Barria / Reuters)
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Trump registers his surprise as he realizes other leaders, including Russia's Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, are crossing their arms for the traditional "ASEAN handshake" as he participates in the opening ceremony of the ASEAN Summit in Manila, Philippines, on Nov. 13. (credit:Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Trump, along with first lady Melania Trump, Saudi Arabia's King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, put their hands on an illuminated globe during the inauguration ceremony of the Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on May 21. (credit:Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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Trump looks up toward the solar eclipse while standing on the Truman Balcony at the White House on Aug. 21. (credit:Mark Wilson via Getty Images)
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Trump and British Prime Minister Theresa May are pictured ahead of a photo opportunity of leaders as they arrive for a NATO summit meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on May 25. (credit:Dan Kitwood via Getty Images)
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Trump boards Air Force One to depart for Vietnam from Beijing, China, on Nov. 10. (credit:Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Trump holds up a pen after signing the HBCU executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 28. (credit:Yuri Gripas / Reuters)
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Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel wait for reporters to enter the room before their meeting in the Oval Office on March 17. (credit:Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Trump meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, on July 7. (credit:Carlos Barria / Reuters)
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Trump welcomes 11-year-old Frank Giaccio to the White House on Sept. 15. Frank, who wrote a letter to Trump offering to mow the White House lawn, was invited to work for a day along the National Park Service staff. (credit:Reuters)
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Trump and Putin shake hands as they take part in a family photo at the APEC summit in Danang, Vietnam, on Nov. 10. (credit:Sputnik Photo Agency / Reuters)
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Trump jokes with French President Emmanuel Macron about their handshakes at the start of the NATO summit at their new headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on May 25. (credit:Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
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Trump holds a mechanical tool as he attends a Made in America roundtable in the East Room of the White House on July 19. (credit:Carlos Barria / Reuters)