How Trump’s D.C. Hotel Cashed In On The Jan. 6 Riot

Sky-high room rates. Record in-room service. Appearances from Trump family members. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what was happening inside the Trump hotel on the days surrounding the storming of the Capitol.

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Donald Trump didn’t just inspire the Jan. 6 riot—he seems to have made money off it.

On December 19, Trump tweeted, “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!” Almost overnight, the cheapest room in his D.C. hotel on that January evening surged from $476 to $1,999. Just over a week later, prices hit $3,600, before eventually climbing to $8,000.

Customers kept spending freely when the big day arrived. On Jan. 7, the director of the Trump hotel bragged that the property’s in-room dining hit record rates.

Who all was in attendance? Guests included insiders working to overturn the election from the “war room” down the block at the Willard hotel—as well as the president’s two eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric. Other Trump partisans showed up too, such as former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Juan O. Savin, a Qanon influencer some followers believe is really John F. Kennedy Jr. (He is not.) 

Using social-media posts from hotel customers, including many who later deleted their updates, Forbes offers an inside look at who was moving around Trump’s business in the days surrounding Jan. 6, when it became a key gathering point for those trying to overturn the election. Officials at the Trump Organization did not respond to inquiries.

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December 18, 2020, 9:05 AM

Rooms at Trump’s D.C. hotel
start at $476 for Jan. 6 on the hotel’s website. 

December 19, 2020, 1:42 AM

In a tweet claiming it was “statistically impossible” for him to have lost the presidential election. Trump plugs a
big, wild protest in D.C. on Jan. 6.

December 20, 2020, 9:51 PM

The cheapest rooms at Trump’s D.C. hotel
are now up to $1,999 for Jan. 6, according to the hotel’s website.

December 31, 2020, 7:59 AM

The least-expensive room on Jan. 6
peaks at $8,000. The spike appears unique to Trump’s property: the average room rate at a downtown D.C. luxury hotel on Jan. 6 was just $415, according to data-hospitality benchmarking firm STR.

Jan. 4, 2021, 1:41 PM

The property’s managing director, Mickael Damelincourt, tweets a photo of the hotel with the text, “The epicenter of our Nation’s Capital…
Looking forward to seeing many of you this week…”

Jan. 5, 2021, 3:56 PM

A hotel guest posts a photo on Instagram that shows her in the lobby with
Phil Waldron. A retired Army colonel who now teaches
“warrior training,” Waldron has appeared along with Rudy Giuliani and GOP state legislators in
Arizona,
Georgia and
Pennsylvania since the election. He has claimed voting systems in the United States “had been built to be manipulated.” Waldron did not respond to an inquiry.

Jan. 5, 2021, 4:30 PM

A D.C. police officer shares a photo on Instagram showing
Donald Trump Jr. posing in front of the hotel’s entrance with five uniformed officers.

Jan. 5, 2021, 4:53 PM

A video appears online showing
Juan O. Savin—a pseudonym for a Qanon influencer who some acolytes believe is
JFK Jr.—with his legs stretched out in a room at the hotel. He and former CIA case officer Robert David Steele, who is in his studio, share theories in the video about how the election could be subverted to ensure Trump stays in power.

While Savin says he believes Trump’s protection would ensure the Jan. 6 protest would be peaceful, he repeatedly stresses the need to slow down the certification process to allow time to take away the election victory from Joe Biden. “We are at a critical moment where it’s clear that you can’t get to justice through the Justice Department,” he says. “In that kind of a situation, enemies foreign and domestic comes into play. If we have to slow this down to get to a proper answer, and even if the military has to be called in in certain areas—not everywhere but in those places where there’s an exceptional problem—that’s what it’s gonna take.”

Steele goes further, advocating for murdering officials involved in the nonexistent conspiracy. “From where I sit, anybody associated with this election fraud needs to either make a deal or die.”

Jan. 5, 2021, 5:36 PM

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) tweets that he plans to object to the electoral college votes from Arizona and possibly other states. Two hours later, a hotel guest posts a photo, first noted by University of New Hampshire professor Seth Abramson, that shows her
in the lobby with the senator.

Jan. 5, 2021, 5:48 PM 

A hotel guest posts a photo, first reported by the
Alabama Political Reporter, that shows former National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn in the lobby. A couple weeks earlier, Flynn had said that Trump could
impose martial law to rerun the election in a Newsmax interview apparently shot from Trump’s D.C. hotel. (
The drapes match those of hotel.)

Jan. 5, 2021, 9:33 PM 

A
Trump political appointee, Charles W. Herbster, claims in a Facebook post, also first noted by Abramson, that he is in the White House with several of the president’s closest confidants. He says they are “joining [him] in a battle for justice and truth.”

According to Herbster, the meeting includes first family members Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, former campaign hands Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, appointees Peter Navarro and Flynn, as well as Tuberville and Giuliani.

The next day, Herbster edits his post, saying he was in fact in the Trump hotel rather than the White House. He also deletes Giuliani from the list of attendees.

Bossie later told the
Alabama Political Reporter
he didn’t attend any such meeting.

Tuberville was at the hotel, but only to attend a reception for 15 minutes, according to a spokesperson. “Senator Tuberville was not invited to, and did not attend, a private meeting with Trump, members of the Trump family or their close associates, and none of those individuals were at the reception at the same time as the senator,” said the spokesperson. “Several of the reception attendees were at the reception and in the hotel for much longer than the senator, as people were coming and going.”

The executive director of the
Republican Attorneys General Association, Adam Piper, also is present, according to Herbster. That day, the association’s political arm placed a robocall “encouraging ‘patriots’ to attend an event termed the March to Save America, with remarks from President Donald Trump before a walk to the Capitol ‘to continue to fight to protect the integrity of our elections,’” reported the Associated Press. Piper did not respond to an inquiry.

In April, Herbster will announce that he is
running for governor of Nebraska.
Trump endorses him on Oct. 26. Herbster’s campaign did not respond to an inquiry.

Jan. 5, 2021, 11:27 PM

The
CEO of Idaho-based Txtwire Technologies, Daniel Beck, posts on Facebook that he spent the evening at the hotel with Don Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Tuberville, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, Navarro and Giuliani. “We talked about the elections, illegal votes, court cases, the republic’s status, what to expect on the Hill tomorrow. TRUMP WILL RETAIN THE PRESIDENCY!!!,” Beck writes, in another post first noted by Abramson. Beck did not respond to an inquiry.

Jan. 5, 2021, 11:32 PM

Beck posts a live video on Facebook from a floor of the hotel that can only be accessed with a room key. He repeats the names from his previous post but adds that “several senators” are also in attendance.

Jan. 6, 2021, 10:15 AM 

Eric Trump takes the stage at the Save America March in front of the White House. “Is there any person here that actually thinks that Joe Biden won this election?” Eric asks. Met with a chorus of no’s, he says, “I don’t either guys, I don’t either.”

Jan. 6, 2021, 10:22 AM 

Don Jr. takes the stage at the same event. “Stand up and fight,” he insists. “Stand up and hold your representatives accountable. And when you do, we can keep America great.”

Jan. 6, 2021, 11:16 AM

Damelincourt tweets a photo showing
Eric Trump at the hotel’s steakhouse, celebrating his birthday.

Jan. 6, 2021, 12 PM

President Trump takes the stage at the Save America March. “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” Trump says. “And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”

Jan. 6, 2021, 12:40 PM 

The first wave of
protesters arrives at the Capitol, according to the
Washington Post.

Jan. 6, 2021, 2:07 PM 

“The
Trump Hotel is closed off unless you have a lanyard,” tweets journalist Hunter Walker.

Jan. 6, 2021, 2:11 PM

Rioters break through a window at the Capitol and enter the building, the
New York Times reports.

Jan. 6, 2021, 5:24 PM

Lindell appears on Newsmax, where he is sharing his theories about election fraud, according to a screenshot tweeted by Azi Paybarah of the
New York Times.
The drapes behind Lindell, a
regular Trump-property customer, match those of Trump’s D.C. hotel.

Jan. 6, 2021, 5:40 PM

A photo appears on Instagram from a room at the hotel, showing an
ambulance and more than a dozen police cars outside.

Jan. 6, 2021, 6:12 PM  

The
Washington D.C. police tweet that an investigation is underway related to a stabbing outside the hotel.

Jan. 6, 2021, 6:49 PM  

The stabbing victim, an adult male, is
conscious and breathing. He has been transferred to a hospital, tweets Geoff Bennett of NBC News.

 

Jan. 6, 2021, 7:19 PM 

A person who has been staying at the hotel posts a photo on Instagram with the caption:
“This ain’t no game patriots.” The
Instagram post disappears from public view before
Forbes can capture a screenshot, but a link to the post, along with the caption, still exists on Twitter.

Searches for that phrase on
Google,
Bing,
DuckDuckGo and
Yandex yields just one result: a web page for the
III Percent Patriots. The Anti-Defamation League calls that group “
anti-government extremists who are part of the militia movement.”

The Instagram user told
Forbes that he was not familiar with the III Percenters and believed he took the photo during the rally at the Ellipse where Trump spoke. While he originally said he didn’t believe he’d used the phrase “This ain’t no game patriots,” after seeing the tweet, he said he meant nothing by it. “I’m just a normal person,” he said. “We say it all the time. Like when we’re partying, we’ll say, ‘This ain’t no game. Marbles is a game.’”

 

Jan. 7, 2021, 5:49 PM

Damelincourt boasts that the hotel’s
in-room dining has enjoyed record numbers this week. In the background of a photo showing members of the room-service team, Damelincourt blurs out the TV screens over the bar, which usually show CNN and Fox News.