8 | POLITICO | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019
A divided Federal Reserve low-
ered its benchmark interest rate a
quarter-point on Wednesday but
didn’t clearly signal another cut
was in store, immediately drawing a
sharp denunciation from President
Donald Trump.
Fed officials didn’t forecast
another rate reduction this year,
though they didn’t rule one out.
That prompted Trump — who has
called on the central bank to slash
rates to zero or below — to blast
the Fed and its chairman, Jerome
Powell.
“Jay Powell and the Federal
Reserve Fail Again. No ‘guts,’ no
sense, no vision! A terrible com-
municator!” Trump tweeted within
minutes of the Fed’s move.
The cut is intended to reassure
markets, companies and house-
holds amid signs that growth is
slowing from its 2018 pace, though
the central bank continues to ex-
pect the economy to expand over
the next few years.
Fed of f icia ls nudged up t hei r
forecast of economic growth this
year, projecting gross domestic
product will increase 2.2 percent,
up from a 2.1 percent estimate in
June. Over the next couple of years,
the Fed expects growth to drop
less than 2 percent, but officials
stayed well away from forecast-
ing a recession.
As the economic picture grows
in complexity, Powell is having a
tough time achieving consensus
within the central bank’s rate-setting committee. Three mem-
bers dissented from the decision to
lower rates, which follows another
cut in July; Kansas City Fed Presi-
dent Esther George and Boston Fed
President Eric Rosengren preferred
to hold rates steady, while St. Louis
Fed President Jim Bullard wanted
a deeper cut.
After the quarter-point cut,
the Fed’s main borrowing rate
is set between 1.75 percent and 2
percent.
Of the Fed’s 17 top officials, in-
cluding seven who don’t have a vote
this year, nearly a third didn’t see
a need for the cut, according to a
chart of officials’ best projections of
the appropriate path for rates. But
seven saw room for still another
rate cut this year.BY VICTORIA GUIDA
Federal Reserve kicks consensus, nicks rates, pricks president
ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is having a tough time achieving
consensus within the central bank’s rate-setting committee.Since Donald Trump took office,
the U.S. military has spent nearly
$200,000 at the president’s luxury
Scotland resort, according to fig-
ures and documents the Pentagon
provided to the House Oversight
Committee.
The spending, which has all
occurred since August 2017, paid
for the equivalent of hundreds of
nights of rooms at the Turnberry
resort over approximately three
dozen separate stays, the com-
mittee said.
The Air Force confirmed last
week that its crews had stayed up
to 40 times at Trump’s property
since 2015, but it has not provided
a breakdown of the number of stays
since Trump was elected. The fig-
ures provided to the House Over-
sight Committee suggest the vast
majority of stays have occurred
since Trump took office, raising
concerns among Democrats about
a conflict of interest.
POLITICO first reported ear-
lier this month that the Oversight
Committee had been probing mili-
tary spending at Turnberry since
April to determine whether the
money constituted a violation of
the Constitution’s domestic emolu-
ments clause, which prohibits the
president from receiving any com-
pensation from the federal govern-
ment other than his salary.
After being elected, Trump chose
not to fully divest himself from his
business interests, choosing in-
stead to put his holdings in a trust
that he can receive money from at
any time.
The committee’s probe
has ramped up in the wake of
POLITICO’s reporting on several
overnight stays at the resort by
U.S. Air Force crews, some of which
have been for multiple nights in-
volving dozens of crew members
and passengers.
The Pentagon documents
showed that U.S. taxpayer funds
“have been used to pay for more
than three dozen separate stays
involving hundreds of nights of
rooms — all after the President was
sworn into office,” according to a
letter the committee’s chairman,
Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings,
and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)
wrote to acting Defense Secretary
Mark Esper on Wednesday.
The Democrats called the Pen-
tagon’s response so far — about 21
pages of material turned over to
the panel, but no underlying in-
voices or travel records — “woe-
fully inadequate.”
But the department did reveal
that the average cost of a roomat Turnberry for military service
members from August 2017 to July
2019 was $189, and that Turnber-
ry expenditures during that time
“amounted to $124,578.96” — plus
an “an additional $59,729.12” in un-
specified charges to government
travel cards.
“If both of these claims are ac-
curate, it appears that U.S. taxpayer
funds were used to purchase the
equivalent of more than 650 rooms
at the Trump Turnberry just since
August 2017 — or the equivalent
of one room every night for morethan one-and-a-half years,” the
congressmen wrote.
The Air Force launched an in-
ternal review of how it chooses
overnight accommodations on
long flights after revelations that
air crews had stayed at Trump’s
Scotland resort while refueling at
Prestwick Airport, a small com-
mercial airport nearby.
Prestwick has long been debt-
ridden — the Scottish government
bought it in 2013 for £1, but it has
continued to lose money in the
years since. The airport signed arefueling contract with the Defense
Department in August 2016, but in
June the government announced its
intent to sell the airport, which is
about 30 miles from Turnberry.
In their letter to Esper on
Wednesday, Cummings and Raskin
wrote that, according to documents
provided by the Pentagon, expen-
ditures at the airport from the day
Trump was inaugurated through
June 21, 2019 amounted to nearly
$17 million. But while the depart-
ment claimed to pay $3.38 per gal-
lon for fuel, the congressmen wrote,
“it did not provide any information
on contemporaneous fuel rates at
non-commercial sites, such as mili-
tary bases elsewhere in Europe.”
Air Force Brig. Gen. Ed Thomas,
the chief spokesman, told POLITICO
in a statement earlier this month
that “initial reviews indicate that
aircrew transiting through Scot-
land adhered to all guidance and
procedures.”
But he acknowledged that U.S.
service members “lodging at high-
er-end accommodations, even if
within government rates, might be
allowable but not advisable. There-
fore, we are reviewing all associated
guidance.”
Democrats in Congress are eye-
ing legislation to put a stop to the
practice altogether.
Nearly three dozen Democratic
senators this week co-sponsored a
bill that would make it illegal for the
federal government to spend tax-
payer dollars at properties owned
by the president, vice president or
members of the Cabinet.
The Heightened Oversight of
Travel, Eating, and Lodging, or
HOTEL, Act was introduced by
Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), a
member of the Armed Services
Committee and the top Democrat
on the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee.
“As elected officials, we must
hold ourselves to the highest ethical
standards and ensure that we are
using taxpayer dollars responsibly,”
Peters said in a statement.
Peters has also requested a for-
mal probe of the Air Force’s use of
Turnberry by the Pentagon’s in-
spector general. A spokeswoman
for the IG, Dwrena Allen, declined
to discuss the status of his request.Ben Schreckinger contributed to
this report.BY NATASHA BERTRAND
AND BRYAN BENDER
Military has spent nearly $200K at Trump Turnberry
House panel says sum
equaled hundreds of
nights of rooms over
about 36 stays
GETTY IMAGES FILE PHOTO 2016
Then-candidate Donald Trump cuts the ribbon on his Scottish golf resort in 2016 with his daughter Ivanka. The Air
Force confirmed last week that its crews had stayed up to 40 times at Trump’s property since 2015.