Ms. Trump wrote to Mickael C. Damelincourt, the hotel’s general manager, asking him to call Mr. Gates to negotiate a better offer for the opening committee. “It should be a fair market price,” Ms. Trump said in a follow-up email that soon resulted in a new offer of $ 175,000 a day.
Even so, Ms. Wolkoff expressed concerns.
“In my opinion the maximum rental fee should be $ 85,000 per day,” she replied to Mr. Gates and Ms. Trump in an email in which she also stated that other properties such as Union Station had offered their rooms for inauguration in free .
This series of emails filed on court documents as part of the lawsuit is at the center of the case that Democrat Racine is pursuing.
The opening committee paid $ 220,000 for rooms in the hotel, including $ 75,259 for renting what is known as the Trump Townhouse, marketed as an ultra-luxury suite.
There were no events that took advantage of it on two days the opening committee paid the hotel $ 175,000 to rent the ballroom, the lawsuit said. And on a third day that the ballroom was actually used for lunch – again, $ 175,000 – another nonprofit group had paid just $ 5,000 to rent the same President’s ballroom for a housewarming event that morning.
The committee also paid the hotel for the cost of a “friends and family” event for Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. that their father was not supposed to attend. The inauguration staff were so uncomfortable that they tried to cancel the meeting, court documents showed. But Mr. Damelincourt disagreed.
“Rick… just heard that the Friday night reception was canceled. Is it accurate “Mr. Damelincourt wrote,“ Hard for us if it’s like it’s a lot of sales. ”The event was then postponed and took place the night Mr. Trump was sworn in.
