WASHINGTON – When President Donald Trump released a list of private donors paying for the construction of his 90,000-square-foot, $300 million White House ballroom — and the demolition of the East Wing — he left lots of questions unanswered.
How much money did these billionaires and corporate CEOs give? Who approached them about donating in the first place? Are they expecting something in return? Are they actively lobbying the White House for other perks for their businesses or themselves?
Was this even a complete list of all the donors behind the ballroom project? (It was not.)
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, posed these questions to more than 30 of the known donors financing Trump’s ballroom project, in a series of letters that went out in late October. He gave them until early November to respond.
The donors’ response letters, obtained by HuffPost, are remarkably evasive. The 21 responses ― two came from contractors on the project, the rest from companies that donated ― almost universally do not answer Blumenthal’s questions, instead boasting about their philanthropy and love of America.
