WASHINGTON — The big-screen televisions beamed constant impeachment updates into the sprawling lobby of the Trump International Hotel near the White House on Friday afternoon, with Fox News declaring “high stakes vote looms on impeachment witnesses.”
But among the guests at this venue, which played a key supporting role in the impeachment drama, there was little question how this chapter would soon be ending: an acquittal of the hotel owner and commander in chief.
“They knew they did not have a case,” said Robert F. Hyde, a long-shot Republican congressional candidate and Trump hotel regular, who was suspected of having put Marie L. Yovanovitch under surveillance while she was the United States ambassador to Ukraine.
He was sitting at the bar, eating a chopped wedge salad and sipping on both a Diet Coke and a cup of coffee. “There is no treason, no bribery,” he said. “No abuse of power.”
Business was brisk on Friday, with a collection of more than two dozen Marines and their families assembled in the lobby, as well as business executives in town to make pitches to the federal government, and an assortment of other fans of President Trump.
Spending at the hotel by political groups has continued uninterrupted during the impeachment proceedings, including by the Republican National Committee, which has paid more than $440,000 to the hotel since Mr. Trump was elected. America First Action, a super PAC that supports Mr. Trump’s causes, has spent another $505,000 at the hotel since 2017.
“NEVER SETTLE,” read the screen on the cash register, the slogan of the Trump Hotels brand, and in a way a motto for Mr. Trump himself throughout the impeachment saga.
The hotel was the regular gathering place for many of the key players in the tale.
Lev Parnas, who pressured officials in Ukraine to investigate the Biden family, called it “our BLT office on the second floor,” referring to the BLT Prime steakhouse on the mezzanine overlooking the hotel lobby, which Mr. Trump frequents for dinner.
“It was like a breeding ground at the Trump hotel,” Mr. Parnas told Rachel Maddow recently.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer and the architect of the pressure campaign, dines so frequently at BLT Prime that he has a regular table with a nameplate reading, “Rudolph W. Giuliani, Private Office.” He was there Thursday night, chatting with a lobbyist for the medical marijuana industry.
One of Mr. Trump’s most ardent congressional supporters, Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, as well as Corey Lewandowski, the president’s former political aide, were spotted at the hotel lobby earlier this week.
Kurt D. Volker, the former United States special envoy to Ukraine, scheduled so many meetings at the Trump hotel with figures at the center of the impeachment inquiry — including Mr. Parnas and Andriy Yermak, a close adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky — that investigators asked why he picked the venue so frequently.
“Because I was guessing that’s where Rudy was going to be staying, so that would be the easiest thing to do,” Mr. Volker said.
Mr. Hyde had his own moment of fame at Trump International, after he suggested to Mr. Parnas here that he had Ms. Yovanovitch under surveillance, something he now says he made up.
Mr. Hyde, who says he is running for a House seat in Connecticut, still hangs at the hotel when he is in Washington, as it offers him an opportunity to network with key players in the Trump administration, or at least the circle of people trying to influence Mr. Trump.
He walked up the hotel manager, Mickael Damelincourt, on Friday to say hello and do a quick fist bump, and greeted one of the bartenders by her first name, before ordering his lunch.
Mr. Hyde was wearing a jersey from Trump National Doral in Miami, a hotel and golf resort where Mr. Hyde said he is a member, a status that also gets him into Mar-a-Lago, the Trump family private club in Palm Beach, Fla., where he can also network.
He was passing out stickers and buttons from his congressional campaign, which continues even though Republican Party leaders in Connecticut have urged him to drop out. Nearby, a waiter took out a small blow torch to ignite a piece of rosemary that hangs above a $22 candied-bacon bar snack.
Patrons at the bar glanced up occasionally at the continued impeachment debate on Friday afternoon. (CNN was on the television on the left, and Fox News on the right.) But there was supreme confidence that this chapter of the Trump era was drawing to a close.
“It needs to be over with — done,” said Melissa Butler, from Columbia, S.C., who said she voted for Mr. Trump and intends to support him again, as she nibbled on a plate of tuna tartar and sipped on a glass of white wine. “It is ridiculous that they brought this up in the first place.”
As the Senate prepared to vote on the question of witnesses will be called, the hotel bar was packed with dozens of patrons, drinks in hand.
“Need popcorn,” said a woman at the bar who declined to be named as the votes were being counted. “Waste of time and taxpayer money.”
The Trump family has announced that it may sell the Washington hotel, which opened in late 2016 and quickly became one of the top sources of revenue for the Trump Organization. A company executive did not respond on Friday when asked how the bidding process was going or if a sale was still being considered.
Litigation continues over several lawsuits claiming that Mr. Trump is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause that prohibits payments to the president from foreign governments or domestic government entities.
But politically connected business has hardly slowed down.
Jonathan Lubecky said he still comes to peruse the lobby and look for people of influence he can grab to press his cause, medical marijuana. That is how he ended up on Thursday speaking with Mr. Giuliani, who he was sitting at his regular table.
“I just go in and I get a drink and see who is there in the lobby that is a target of opportunity to talk to,” Mr. Lubecky said.
Big moneymaking events also continued to be scheduled at the Trump hotel, including gatherings of Texas, Florida and Oklahoma bankers, Texas truckers, as well as pipeline contractors, two doctors’ groups and a Greek-American association, according to a list compiled by 1100 Pennsylvania, a newsletter that tracks activity at the hotel.
“The hotel continues — it is going to roll on — until the president no longer has the hotel or the hotel no longer has the presidency,” said Zach Everson, who runs the 1100 Pennsylvania site. “The end of the impeachment saga means nothing here.”
Mr. Trump, at least, will not likely be at his Washington hotel this weekend. He flew out Friday afternoon for Mar-a-Lago, giving reporters a thumbs up as he left the White House.
Kenneth P. Vogel contributed reporting.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
