White House says next G-7 to be held at a Trump golf resort

• The Associated Press
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  The Associated Press (AP) is a U.S.-based not-for-profit news agency headquartered in New York City.

(Washington) — The White House said Thursday it has chosen President Donald Trump’s golf resort near Miami as the site for next year’s Group of Seven summit.

The announcement to hold the event at Trump National Doral comes at the same time the president has accused Joe Biden’s family of profiting from public office because of Hunter Biden’s business activities in Ukraine when his father was vice president.

The G-7 summit will be held June 10 to 12. The idea of holding the event at Trump’s resort has been criticized by government ethics watchdogs.

Trump has touted his resort, saying it’s close to the airport, has plenty of hotel rooms and offers separate buildings for every delegation.

A team looking at the sites reported that it was “the perfect physical location to do this,” acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney said. He said about a dozen potential sites were narrowed to a list of four finalists before Doral was selected.

“It became apparent at the end of that process that Doral was by far and away, far and away, the best physical facility for this meeting,” Mulvaney said.

Mulvaney said that holding the event at Doral would be dramatically cheaper than other sites and that Trump would not be profiting from the event.

“There’s no issue here on him profiting from this in any way, shape or form,” Mulvaney said.

Some watchdog groups disagreed with Mulvaney’s assessment.

Trump “no longer sees fit even to pretend that he is constrained by the law or the Constitution,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen.

“The president is now officially using the power of his office to help prop up his struggling golf business,” said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

When the United States has hosted the summit before, it has been held in Puerto Rico; Williamsburg, Virginia; Houston; Denver; Sea Island, Georgia; and Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland.