Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser was slapped with an ethics complaint filed Tuesday by a watchdog group accusing her of potentially accepting illegal travel and hospitality gifts on at least three long-haul jaunts — including to Qatar, the Masters golf tournament, and President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) filed the complaint with the DC Board of Ethics and Government Accountability after a local TV station revealed in April that Doha had paid at least $61,930 for the Democrat and four staffers to travel to the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference in neighboring Dubai.
According to the report by WJLA-TV, Bowser’s office initially stated the DC Chamber of Commerce paid for the Qatar trip, which it denied. The mayor’s office then claimed the travel was paid for by the US Conference of Mayors.
In February of this year, the complaint states, Bowser’s office asked the Qataris for a complete breakdown of the trip’s expenses, which Doha described as an “in-kind donation.”
DC law requires a donation agreement with Qatar, but there is no record of such an understanding. In response to queries by WJLA, Bowser’s office claimed it was undertaking proper record-keeping by asking Doha for an itemized record — so an agreement could be drawn up two years after the fact.
The FACT complaint, first reported by Fox News, charges that Bowser has kept DC taxpayers in the dark about other trips to destinations as varied as Las Vegas, Miami and Augusta, Ga., where the Masters is held.
“It is not simply the Qatar trip, but a troubling pattern from Mar-a-Lago to Doha to Augusta National — the District has no record of who paid for these trips or what public purpose they served, if there was one at all,” Kendra Arnold, executive director of FACT, said in a statement.
“The ethics rules exist to protect against corruption and when they are ignored, the public’s trust erodes. I urge the Board to investigate and enforce the law without delay.”
WJLA’s investigation found that Bower’s chief of staff, Lindsey Parker, submitted a receipt for a three-night stay at Dubai’s Atlantis-The Palm Hotel, costing taxpayers a cool $3,500.
The station noted that Parker’s job description includes approving donations for official travel outside the US.
The FACT complaint pointed to DC’s strict rules that restrict the acceptance of gifts under most circumstances.
“Clearly Mayor Bowser’s trip to Qatar qualifies as a gift, and one that elected officials are personally prohibited from accepting,” it read. “Additionally, this gift would not qualify as a donation made to the District because the donation was not recorded and approved before the donation was used. The District still does not even have a record of it.
“The mayor and Qatar’s retroactive description of the gift as an “in-kind donation” should not carry any weight—both because this is a self-serving claim that was not made until years after the trip and because it does not meet the legal requirements to be categorized as one.”
Bowser’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
