William Barr Is Paying His Boss $30,000 for a Holiday Party

By Alison Durkee, Vanity Fair

28 August 19

A Justice Department official promises the decision to give Trump a holiday bonus wasn't made to “curry favor with the president.”

hen it comes to his allegiance to President Donald Trump, Attorney General William Barr is seemingly willing to put his money where his mouth is. The Washington Post reports that Barr will be hosting his annual “Family Holiday Party” this year at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. for approximately 200 guests on December 8. According to a contract obtained by the Post, the attorney general will be paying more than $30,000 for the holiday bash—which will conveniently be directly enriching his boss's business.

The Post reports that Barr will be paying for the event himself and chose the venue after discovering other local hotels, including the Willard and Mayflower Hotels, were already booked. The annual shindig will include a buffet and four-hour open bar, along with both traditional holiday festivities and a ceilidh, which features Irish or Scottish music. (Barr, after all, is a former competitive bagpipe player.) The party's price tag includes $4,500 to rent the Ivanka Trump-designed ballroom and at least $100 per person for food and drink—plus 35% for tax and tip—and the contract requires Barr to pay at least $31,500, even if he ends up canceling the event. A Justice Department official told the Post that the decision to host the event at the Trump hotel was not made in order to “curry favor with the president,” and that career ethics officials were “consulted” about the decision. “They determined that ethics rules did not prohibit him from hosting his annual party at the Trump hotel,” the official said.

Of course, the Trump Organization has regularly profited off of government officials since Trump first took office, sparking criticism that the president is violating the Constitution's Emoluments Clause as a result. The Post reported in June that Trump's trips to his own properties alone have brought in at least $1.6 million in revenue from federal officials and GOP campaigns—not to mention all the visits and events by officials from 22 foreign governments. Trump most recently raised the Emoluments Clause alarm by suggesting he'll hold next year's G7 summit at his (potentially bedbug-ridden) Trump National Doral Miami, a decision that law professor Kathleen Clark told the Associated Press would be “ethics violation squared.”

Complicating Barr's decision to host a Trump hotel event of his own is the fact that as the head of the Justice Department, Barr and his attorneys are the ones defending Trump in the multiple Emoluments lawsuits focused on these hotel charges—which could particularly be a problem if Trump gives Barr a discount on the bill. “If the attorney general gets a discount while the Justice Department defends the hotel in court, that is not how the justice system is supposed to work and it’s not how the Department of Justice is supposed to work,” Liz Hempowicz, director of public policy at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight, told the Post. (The Justice Department official said Barr will be paying market rate for the event, though the Post notes it is “difficult to determine” whether that's true based on the contract they obtained.)

Barr's choice of venue also doesn't help the attorney general's existing reputation as a Trump sycophant willing to show blind loyalty to his boss, whether that's through misrepresenting the Mueller report, or, now, putting some extra holiday cash in his boss's pockets. Walter Shaub, a former director of the Office of Government Ethics, told the Post that Barr's decision is “one of those things that doesn’t violate the rules, but it’s really troubling,” saying the attorney general “keeps sending signals that his loyalty is to a politician and not to the country.” The attorney general's actions also raise concerns that the holiday party, which the DOJ is currently suggesting is totally above board, may spur a larger trend. D.C. Attorney General Karl A. Racine told the Post that he fears Barr's holiday bash will “normalize” those who spend money at Trump properties to “curry favor” with the president, which could lead to even more Trump allies doing so with fewer consequences. The venue choice could also signal to those in the Trump orbit that money is an acceptable—and, perhaps, even encouraged—way to demonstrate the loyalty that Trump so clearly craves. “It creates the appearance that high-level political appointees or allies of the president may feel like they need to spend money at the president’s businesses as a show of loyalty,” Hempowicz said, “and that is something that makes me deeply uncomfortable and should make taxpayers deeply uncomfortable.”