Overview
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Robert Garcia introduced the Stop Ballroom Bribery Act on Nov. 18 in response to President Trump’s privately funded, roughly $300 million, 90,000-square-foot White House ballroom.
- The bill would bar donations from entities with conflicts such as pending federal contracts, enforcement actions or litigation, prohibit anonymous gifts, and require National Park Service and Office of Government Ethics approval before funds are used.
- Post-donation rules would forbid donor name or logo displays, impose a two-year lobbying cooling-off period, require quarterly public reporting of donor names and amounts, and mandate disclosure of donor meetings with federal officials within a year of giving.
- Enforcement provisions include judicial review of donation approvals and authority for the Justice Department and state attorneys general to seek civil penalties, disgorgement and, in some cases, criminal penalties.
- Passage is unlikely in the Republican-controlled Congress as transparency questions persist, with oversight letters to more than 40 donors yielding only 16 replies without contribution amounts; disclosed supporters include major firms such as Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Palantir.