Donald Trump Jr. wanted for questioning by DC attorney general on $1M overpayment to Trump hotel

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump Jr. was asked by the attorney general’s office in the District of Columbia to sit down for questioning in relation to a lawsuit claiming President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee illegally overpaid for events at a Washington hotel owned by his family business.

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine sent a formal deposition request to Donald Trump Jr., spokesman David Mayorga said Thursday.

Racine’s office sued in January 2020, claiming that Trump’s inaugural committee made an unjustified payment of more than $1 million to the Trump hotel for events from Jan. 17, 2017, to Jan. 20, 2017, after failing to consider less expensive alternatives.

The deposition request was earlier reported by The Washington Post.

The Attorney General’s Office has already deposed several other family members and associates of Trump.

In December, lawyers for Racine interviewed Ivanka Trump, who said on Twitter that she spent more than five hours answering questions. The office has also deposed Mickael Damelincourt, the managing director of the Trump hotel in downtown Washington, and Eric Danziger, who runs Trump’s hotel business, as well as Thomas Barrack Jr., a longtime friend of the president’s and chairman of the inauguration committee.

Ivanka Trump in October in Grand Rapids, Michigan. (Nicole Hester/Mlive.com)Nicole Hester/Mlive.com

Alan Garten, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But he has previously argued that the rates charged at the Trump hotel were in line with what other five-star hotels charged during the inauguration festivities.

The case is District of Columbia v. 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee, 2020 CA 000488 B, Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

By David Yaffe-Bellany, Bloomberg News (TNS)