Trump Tower’s key tenants have fallen behind on rent and moved out. But Trump has one reliable customer: His own PAC.
NEW YORK — Inside Trump Tower, swank suit-maker Marcraft Clothes once rented the entire 18th floor, outfitting its offices with fireplaces, mahogany-lined closets and two bars for schmoozing customers.
But then Marcraft fell $664,000 behind on rent and went out of business last year — its assets having dwindled to $40.75 in a checking account and “1,200 damaged coats,” according to court filings.
One floor up, a business school
once led by Kardashian family matriarch Kris Jenner was consumed by lawsuits, falling $198,000 behind on payments to Trump Tower by October 2020, according to court papers. And on the 21st and 22nd floors, the company that
made Ivanka Trump shoes racked up $1.5 million in unpaid rent, according to a lawsuit that the Trump Organization filed this year.
But through all that — as Trump Tower has dealt with imploding tenants, political backlash and a broader, pandemic-related slump in Manhattan office leasing since last year — it has been able to count on one reliable, high-paying tenant: former president Donald Trump’s own political operation.
Starting in March, one of his committees,
Make America Great Again PAC, paid $37,541.67 per month to rent office space on the 15th floor of Trump Tower — a space previously rented by his campaign — according to campaign-finance filings and a person familiar with the political action committee.
This may not be the most efficient use of donors’ money: The person familiar with Trump’s PAC said that its staffers do not regularly use the office space. Also, for several months, Trump’s PAC paid the Trump Organization $3,000 per month to rent a retail kiosk in the tower’s lobby — even though the lobby was closed.
Campaign-finance experts said the payments do not appear to be illegal. This kind of PAC has very few restrictions and no expiration date, so Trump is free to spend its money at his own properties as long as he wants.
But they said Trump is
continuing a practice that was a hallmark of his presidency by exploiting loose regulations — and his own supporters’ trust — to convert political donations into private revenue for himself.
“He’s running a con,” said
Paul S. Ryan, a campaign-finance expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “Talking about political expenses — but, in reality, raising money for self-enrichment.”
The Trump Organization did not respond to questions. A spokeswoman for Trump’s political operation, Liz Harrington, defended the spending.
“We are paying market rate for leased office space used to help President Trump build a financial juggernaut to help elect America First conservatives and flip both the House and Senate to the Republicans in the midterm elections,” Harrington said.
Harrington said that the PAC had also paid for the lobby kiosk for several months, even though the lobby was closed, because it had inherited the kiosk from Trump’s 2020 campaign and “all of the campaign merchandise was still in the space.” Harrington said officials expected the lobby to reopen, but — when it remained closed — the PAC stopped paying. The last payment was made in early May.
Trump Tower, a 58-story glass tower on Fifth Avenue, served for years as Trump’s primary home, the headquarters of his business and a kind of physical avatar of his success. Its was the set for
TV’s “The Apprentice,” and the backdrop for Trump’s announcement of his 2016 presidential campaign.
But, in its midsection, Trump Tower is something more prosaic: a Manhattan office building, with 12 floors available for lease. The Trump Organization’s headquarters occupies two other office floors.
The leased floors serve as part of the collateral for one of Trump’s biggest outstanding debts, a $100 million loan with the full amount due next year, according to data kept by the real estate analysis firm Trepp. Trump still owns his businesses, including this one, but
says that his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. manage them day-to-day.
To assess the financial health of Trump Tower — and the importance of the revenue it receives from Trump’s own PAC — The Washington Post examined filings with New York taxing authorities, as well as loan documents, campaign-finance records and lawsuits involving Trump Tower tenants.
In the years before he became president, Trump reported to New York City that the tower’s office spaces produced income of between $8 million and $11 million per year in rent. Those filings were obtained by The Post after a public-records request.
The most recent filing that the city provided to The Post covered 2017. The Post could not find detailed figures on rental income from the office spaces after that.
But it is clear that some of Trump’s customers have recently fallen into turmoil, and at times ended up behind on their rent.
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