corporate donors Donald Trump’s White House Ballroom received more than the project $50 billion In federal contracts of more than six months. A watchdog report now links donations to increased government business for those firms.
The findings, published by the nonprofit on June 4 public citizenInvestigated 27 publicly known corporate contributors to the $400 million East Wing replacement. Fourteen of them won new or expanded contracts, worth a total of more than $50 billion since demolition began in October. The report intensifies an already heated debate over whether the administration is running a pay-to-play system.
Report claims Donald Trump’s ballroom donors will get $50 billion in contracts
No ballroom donor got more money than Lockheed Martin. Defense contractors have received about $43.8 billion in new or expanded federal funding since last fall. Booz Allen Hamilton came in second with more than $4.2 billion, while data firm Palantir received more than $1 billion.
Other ballroom donors whose government work increased include Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Caterpillar and T-Mobile. The report said 19 of the 27 corporate contributors had government contracts totaling $338 billion over the past five and a half years.
“These giant corporations are not funding the Trump ballroom fiasco out of the goodness of their hearts,” said John Golinger, public policy attorney at Public Citizen and co-author of the report. “They have broad interests before the federal government, and they expect to support the Trump administration and receive favorable treatment from it,” Golinger said.
The report also documents a pattern involving regulatory scrutiny. Sixteen of the 27 donors have faced federal enforcement actions or been suspended under Donald Trump’s administration.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said critics who allege conflict of interest “would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-delayed renovations.” He said the donors represent “a wide range of great American companies and generous individuals who are contributing to improving the People’s House for generations to come.”
Additionally, a recent YouGov poll found that 54% of Americans now describe Trump as “corrupt” as well as “dishonest” (54%), “reckless” (56%) and “opportunistic” (57%).
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu Mandatory