Quote:
“In the law, there’s a canon that says, avoid the appearance of impropriety,” Representative Francis Rooney, Republican of Florida, told reporters on Friday, adding, “I think that would be better if he would not use his hotel for this kind of stuff.”
Former White House officials expressed shock that Mr. Trump would consider hosting an event that would enrich his family, and suggested that the choice would also pose immediate ethical concerns for the world leaders invited to the summit.
“The appearance of impropriety and self-enrichment will likely be troubling to at least some G7 leaders,” said Daniel M. Price, who helped organize the summits for President George W. Bush. “If I were still the U.S. sherpa and the president was invited to attend a summit at a business resort owned by the foreign leader host, my first question would be to White House counsel about whether ethics rules would permit the president to attend.”
To claim Doral would do this at cost and not enrich trump is insulting. June is slow (I have stayed there prior to trump) and there is a lot of fixed overhead not being covered---but that overhead would have been "billable" even if the "at cost" promise were covered.