The Daily Fuckup

The District of Columbia, the Trump Organization and the 58th Presidential Inaugural Committee resolved their dispute over 2017 inauguration spending with a $750,000 settlement that the court entered on May 6, 2022. The agreement requires the defendants to pay the District, which will divide the money equally between Mikva Challenge DC and DC Action for Children. The settlement order also leaves the court in place to enforce its terms.

The case centered on spending at the Trump International Hotel in Washington during the 2017 inauguration. The District had alleged that inaugural funds were steered into hotel payments that benefited Trump-owned interests and that the committee paid more than it should have for event space and related services. The settlement ended the lawsuit without a trial, without findings of fact and without any admission of wrongdoing by the defendants.

The deal closes one of the District’s higher-profile fights over inauguration money, but it does not turn the underlying allegations into proved facts. It does, however, convert a contested claim into a fixed payment and directs that money to two local groups instead of leaving it with the parties accused in the case.

The result is a clean legal ending and an awkward political one. The District got a settlement. The defendants avoided a trial. And the questions that drove the case — how much the inaugural committee spent, who benefited and whether the hotel was used as a route for private gain — were left unresolved in the courtroom where they would have been tested.