A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.MONDAY, OCTOBER 21 , 2019
in Miami, for hosting the G-
Leaders,” he tweeted Saturday.
One former senior administra-
tion official said Trump would
regularly brag about his proper-
ties and ask visitors their opin-
ions while boasting of their amen-
ities.
“It’s true that he really just
thinks his properties are the best,”
said a longtime adviser to the
president. “He does not under-
stand in his mind why he would
have something at someone else’s
property.”
The president’s critics were less
charitable, accusing Trump of try-
ing to make money for his private
business by awarding himself a
lucrative federal contract.
“This is why he ran in the first
place,” said Tim O’Brien, a Trump
biographer and critic. “He never
thought he’d win. It was free mar-
keting.”
Mulvaney, who claimed Thurs-
day that the White House had
chosen the president’s Doral re-
sort after a nationwide search,
said Sunday on Fox that Trump
was surprised by the backlash he
had received.
“Could we have put on an excel-
lent G-7 at Doral? Absolutely,” he
said. “Will we end up putting on
an excellent G-7 someplace else?
Yes, we will.”
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Ashley Parker, Robert Costa and
Jackie Alemany contributed to this
report.visits that took him far out of his
way from the official business of
his trips. He also suggested Vice
President Pence do the same:
Pence built his own detour into an
official trip and spent extra hours
commuting so he could stay at
Trump’s club in remote south-
western Ireland. These trips bring
attention to Trump’s properties,
and they bring revenue.
Democrats and good govern-
ance groups have said Trump is
violating the Constitution’s ban
on receiving “emoluments” from
foreign or domestic sources while
president. The decision to host
world leaders and U.S. officials at
his Doral club during the G-7 was
particularly controversial be-
cause it would have put Trump at
the center of those alleged viola-
tions.
“It shouldn’t have been done in
the first place,” Chris Christie, the
former Republican governor of
New Jersey, said Sunday on ABC’s
“This Week.” “This was just an
unforced error.”
Christie said Trump should not
be antagonizing Republicans at a
time when he will need their votes
to protect him in the impeach-
ment process.
“We have to be in friend-mak-
ing mode,” he said.
Trump, who has been able to
rely on near-unanimous Republi-
can support during his 33 months
in office, appeared chastened by
the lack of support.
“I thought I was doing some-
thing very good for our Country
by using Trump National Doral,ability Office is expected to study
the military fatalities.
The Pentagon has also imple-
mented technical solutions
aimed at improving training
safety in vehicles, including anti-
lock brakes and systems designed
to reduce the risk of rollovers.
“I keep thinking, is anyone
taking seriously what happened
to my son?” Alexandrina Braica,
mother of Joshua Braica, told
The Post in August. “Did anyone
say, ‘Okay, we had a fatality, let’s
ensure this doesn’t happen
again?’ ”
[email protected]ca, 29, a Marine special operator,
was killed in an accident at Camp
Pendleton in California. A month
later, Marine 1st Lt. H. Conor
McDowell died in a rollover at
the same base. Also in May, Ma-
rine Lance Cpl. Hans Sandoval-
Pereyra, 21, was killed in Aus-
tralia. In June, a Humvee acci-
dent in Alaska resulted in the
death of Army Spec. Marquise
Elliott, 25. Staff Sgt. Andrew Mi-
chael St. John, 29, was killed in a
Humvee rollover in August at
Fort Hood in Texas.
As The Post reported in Au-
gust, the Government Account-in the past year. The death toll
has prompted calls from military
families and congressional lead-
ers for improved training stan-
dards and practices.
As The Washington Post re-
ported in August, fatalities in
training exercises outnumber
combat deaths 4 to 1. According
to the Pentagon, training fatali-
ties are down overall, but at least
15 service members have been
killed in the past year. Those
fatalities also represent an in-
crease from last year.
Among the most recent deaths
was in April, when Joshua Brai-Three other soldiers were in-
jured and were transported to
Winn Army Community Hospital
for treatment, according to the
release.
“Our hearts and prayers go out
to all the families affected by this
tragedy,” Aguto said.
The Army has yet to release the
names of the soldiers involved.
Next of kin are being notified,
and the incident is under investi-
gation, the release said.
The Fort Stewart incident
comes as more than a dozen
American service members have
been killed in training exercisesleased on the crash.
“Today is a heartbreaking day
for the 3rd Infantry Division, and
the entire Fort Stewart-Hunter
Army Airfield community,” Maj.
Gen. Tony Aguto, commanding
general of the 3rd Infantry Divi-
sion, said in the release. “We are
extremely saddened by the loss.”BY KYLE SWENSONAn accident during a training
exercise at a U.S. Army post in
Georgia resulted in three deaths
Sunday morning, the service
said.
According to a news release,
three members of the Army’s
1st Armored Brigade Combat
Team were pronounced dead at
Fort Stewart-Hunter Army Air-
field, about 40 miles southwest of
Savannah, after “an early morn-
ing training accident” involving a
Bradley Fighting Vehicle. Addi-
tional details have not been re-
ments about impeachment, ac-
cording to one administration of-
ficial. The president was told re-
peatedly his G-7 decision made it
more difficult to keep Senate Re-
publicans in a unified front
against impeachment proceed-
ings, the official said. Before he
changed course, Trump had
waved off concerns from advisers
who said hosting world leaders at
his club would not play well.
“There was very little support
for this in the building even be-
fore Mick went out there and did
what he did,” an official said.
Before he took office, Trump
made the unprecedented deci-
sion to keep ownership of his
businesses — but he promised
that he would never use his new
power to help them. The Trump
Organization’s lawyers promised
to avoid even the appearance of
“any advantage derived from the
Office of the Presidency.”
But in practice, Trump has con-
tinued to boost his businesses —
by talking them up and by visiting
them repeatedly, with aides and
fellow Republicans in tow.
Trump has visited his proper-
ties more than 130 times while in
office. As of this summer, those
visits had brought him more than
$1.6 million in payments from the
federal government and Republi-
can campaign groups, which
rented Trump’s ballrooms for
fundraisers.
In the past 18 months, Trump
has made even more expensive
visits to his properties in Ireland,
Scotland and South Florida —erratic approach to policymak-
ing, including his abrupt decision
to withdraw U.S. troops and aban-
don Kurdish fighters in north-
eastern Syria. That announce-
ment was roundly condemned by
Republicans, including some of
his staunchest defenders. Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McCon-
nell (Ky.), in a rare public rebuke
of Trump, wrote a withering op-
ed in The Washington Post on
Friday, just days after 129 House
Republicans backed a resolution
criticizing the president’s move.
Trump’s decision to host next
year’s G-7 meeting at his private
golf club only increased the anxi-
ety among GOP lawmakers, some
of whom have grown weary of
having to develop new talking
points almost daily.
Privately, and occasionally in
public, several Republicans said
they were not prepared to defend
the president from charges that
he was engaged in self-dealing on
the G-7 site selection.
Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.)
said Friday that Trump should
avoid even the appearance of im-
propriety that comes with hold-
ing a global summit at his private
property. “I think that would be
better if he would not use his hotel
for this kind of stuff,” he said.
Rooney, who announced his
retirement the day after his com-
ments, also said he was consider-
ing backing Trump’s impeach-
ment over his handling of
Ukraine policy.
Trump has been closely watch-
ing Republicans and their com-support Mulvaney. “Mick Mulva-
ney’s standing in the White House
has not changed,” White House
spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham
said.
But the chief of staff may have
damaged that standing with his
Fox News interview, in which he
explained Trump’s desire to host
the G-7 at his property by saying
the president “still considers him-
self to be in the hospitality busi-
ness.”
While several Trump allies said
the comment was accurate, they
said it was a bad idea for Mulva-
ney to make it in public. Other top
Republicans, including Secretary
of State Mike Pompeo, have begun
to distance themselves from Mul-
vaney, who released a statement
Thursday denying his admission
of a quid pro quo.
Trump blamed his G-7 reversal
on critics, saying on Twitter that
his decision to scrap plans for a
summit at the Doral club
was “based on both Media & Dem-
ocrat Crazed and Irrational Hos-
tility.”
But behind closed doors, sev-
eral aides and allies said, Trump
changed his mind in response to
pressure and frustration from his
own party.
In the month since Democrats
announced their impeachment
inquiry, Republicans have strug-
gled to offer a coherent response.
With no White House war room,
GOP lawmakers have seized on
process-related responses.
At the same time, they’re being
asked to defend the president’sTrump’s call with the Ukrainian
president that sparked the im-
peachment inquiry. Mulvaney
told reporters that Trump had
held up nearly $400 million in aid
to push the foreign government to
investigate Democrats, com-
ments that undercut Trump’s cen-
tral defense in the inquiry. When
a journalist followed up, saying
that Mulvaney seemed to be de-
scribing a quid pro quo, Mulvaney
said “we do that all the time with
foreign policy.”
On Sunday, Mulvaney ex-
pressed regret about how he han-
dled the two issues.
“It’s not lost on me that if we
made the decision [to move the
G-7] on Thursday, we wouldn’t
have had the news conference on
Thursday regarding everything
else, but that’s fine,” he said on
“Fox News Sunday.”
Mulvaney’s acknowledgment
of a mistake — he also said Sun-
day that the news conference had
been less than “perfect” — comes
as Trump has privately expressed
displeasure with his acting chief ’s
job performance and as some
White House officials are seeking
to replace him, according to sev-
eral people familiar with the mat-
ter who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to reveal private dis-
cussions. Several officials said
Trump’s aides and allies are con-
sidering options for a new chief of
staff.
On Friday, White House press
officials said Trump continued to
TRUMP FROM A
3 soldiers are killed during training exercise at post in Georgia
Mulvaney: Trump still sees himself as ‘in the hospitality business’
3 others injured, brought
to hospital after accident
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