Maplight: Nation’s Biggest Lobbying Organization Plans 2018 Meeting At Trump-Owned Miami Resort

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An “elite” group of executives at U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation’s most powerful business lobby, will meet at a Trump hotel in Miami next year, according to the organization’s website.

The conference for the Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100, an invitation-only group that serves as representatives of local chambers, will take place over three days in March 2018 at the Trump National Doral in Miami. The golf resort is managed by President Donald Trump’s son, Eric, and held in trust for the president, who has refused to divest from his business interests. As a 501(c)(6) trade association, the chamber is not required to publicly disclose its donors.

“This is the problem with the president not divesting himself from these properties -- he clearly is going to benefit from this,” said Larry Noble, general counsel at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center. “And with [the chamber] being a dark money group we don’t know where the money is coming from. We don’t know whether or not it’s business money, or it’s foreign national money, or it’s money from foreign governments. It is disturbing that you have dark money groups, who could be using any source imaginable to pay, doing this.”

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