Trump’s new DC hotel vandalized this morning w/ Black Lives Matter graffiti. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be isolated. Smh. ?? pic.twitter.com/r9T6o9DfgT
— Tara Setmayer (@TaraSetmayer) October 2, 2016
Republican nominee Donald Trump described his newest hotel in D.C. at the historic Old Post Office as “under budget, ahead of schedule, saved tremendous money,” during the first presidential debate—claims that remain difficult to prove.
One claim that is indisputable: as of Saturday afternoon, graffiti defaced the front of the building. Someone spray painted the words “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace” on the granite walls in front of Trump International Hotel’s entrance on 12th Street.
D.C. Police are investigating the incident. According to a police report filed at 4:50 p.m., the graffiti occurred around 4 p.m. The unidentified suspect “fled the scene in an unknown manner and direction.”
As of Sunday, plywood boards covered the graffiti.
The Trump Organization won a 60-year lease for the Old Post Office building from the federal government in 2012. After Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, celebrity chefs Jose Andres and Geoffrey Zakarian canceled their plans for restaurants, prompting lawsuits and countersuits. The hotel has since been the scene of a number of protests against Trump’s candidacy.
Before Trump began running for president, though still years into his quest to prove President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S., a bevy of D.C. politicians attended the groundbreaking for the “finest luxury hotel” in 2014.
A press conference held at the Old Post Office shortly after its soft open on September 12 was ostensibly about retracting said birtherism, but Trump spend the majority of the time bragging about the new hotel in what CNN’s Jake Tapper called, “a political rick-roll.“
Rachel Kurzius