The Washington Post editorial board on Friday issued a stinging response to the announcement that the 2020 G-7 summit of world leaders will be held at President Donald Trump’s golf resort in Miami, claiming it destroyed the notion that the U.S. “stands for clean government in the public interest.”
An op-ed published by the newspaper’s board ― titled “Trump’s plan for the G-7 is blatant corruption. Congress should stop it.” ― recalled how the president’s first floating of the idea in August at the last G-7 gathering in France had initially “sounded like a joke.”
“This is not a jest: It is blatant and corrupt self-dealing by the president,” it wrote, adding that if hosting the summit at the president’s resort did not violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause “then nothing does.”
“At the start of his term, Mr. Trump promised to insulate himself from the business operations from which he would continue to profit,” the board concluded the piece. “Now he is doing just the opposite: using his office to drive millions of dollars in revenue to a faltering property that is a critical component of his company’s portfolio. Will Congress really tolerate such crude corruption? It shouldn’t.”