(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue is the subject of yet another lawsuit.

This one comes courtesy of Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, who filed in U.S. District Court in D.C. on Thursday to obtain records from the General Services Administration, which is leasing the Old Post Office Building to the Trump Organization, a business arrangement finalized long before Donald Trump became a presidential candidate.

“This lawsuit is not just about a hotel in Washington D.C.,” said Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings, the ranking member on the Oversight Committee. “This is about the president defying a federal statute and denying our ability as members of congress to fulfill our constitutional duty to act as a check on the executive branch.”

The suit wants the documents that Democrats have been unable to obtain by requesting them through letters, regarding the extent of payments to the hotel from foreign governments, “whether the Office of the Presidency is being used for private gain,” and why the GSA ultimately determined the lease was in compliance.

When the Trump International Hotel opened in late October 2016, the then-Republican nominee took time out of his campaigning to cut the ribbon. However, the hotel was seen more as a punching bag (it lost more than $1 million in net income during its first two months in operation, per GSA figures published by Democrats). That changed on election night, and it has since become a hot spot for people looking to gain favor with the Trump administration.

But the precise reason for its popularity—the number of administration officials one can access there and the ability to boast to the president of staying at his hotel—are also why it’s a target of a number of lawsuits, including ones filed by the attorneys general of D.C. and Maryland, a watchdog organization, and a local wine bar. Given the foreign powers spending money in the hotel, which does not track such spending, it’s become a prominent symbol of potential conflicts-of-interest for a president who refuses to fully divest from his business holdings.

Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have long expressed concern about the D.C. hotel violating its lease, which states that “No member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States … shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom.”

However, the GSA said in March that switching management responsibilities to eldest son Donald Jr. brought the hotel “in full compliance” with the lease.

The acting heads of the agency have since said they would not procure documents unless they were backed by the Oversight Committee Chairman, Trey Gowdy, a Republican.

The GSA does not comment on ongoing litigation.

“We would not be here today if Chairman Gowdy and his Republican colleagues would do their jobs,” said Cummings. “Republicans are essentially walling off President Trump from credible congressional oversight.”

House Oversight Dems Complaint by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd