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Meet Me At The Mayflower
Over 12 weeks, beginning last spring, the Trump campaign and Putin’s emissaries sealed a deal that could unravel his presidency.
In Washington scandals, all roads lead to The Mayflower Hotel. JFK stayed there in a permanent private suite, Bill Clinton taped his testimony in the Lewinsky scandal in the Presidential Suite, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry was busted for cocaine possession there, and Eliot Spitzer hired high-end prostitutes in room 871. So it seems fitting that the biggest scandal in our nation’s history finds a setting in the hotel’s sumptuous Senate Room.
Jared Kushner was the first to approach National Interest editor Jacob Heilbrunn about hosting an event where Kushner’s father-in-law, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, could outline his vague foreign policy. Whether the meeting achieved its goal remains an open question, but it has become a significant point of interest for FBI investigators probing the Trump-Russia scandal.
As the National Interest editor explains, the magazine arranged everything about the meeting: “The menu, the venue, the seating,” to borrow a lyric from Hamilton. The Mayflower was chosen over the originally booked National Press Club, perhaps because the Press Club doesn’t offer hotel rooms on-site where personal or political business can take place in complete privacy behind closed doors.
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The April 27 event was attended by a typical mix of Trump loyalists, interested observers, and a handful of ambassadors, including Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Kislyak’s attendance was symbolic, designed to underscore Trump’s main talking point: lessening Russian sanctions and building an alliance with Moscow.
After the speech, two dozen high-profile guests attended a small reception at the hotel. “Trump certainly knows how to put everyone at ease,” recalls Heilbrunn.
“He bounded into the room with a hearty ‘Hello, everybody!’ A kind of impromptu receiving line formed in deference to the man—as though he were already president. Trump doesn’t work the room. You come to him.”
Senator Jeff Sessions was also present. While details of his activities at the Mayflower remain primarily undisclosed, the FBI has confirmed that it intercepted communications from Ambassador Kislyak, in which he informed his superiors in Moscow about a private meeting with Sessions at the hotel.
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