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Attorney for the president, Rudy Giuliani, speaks at a news conference in the parking lot of Four Seasons Total Landscaping on Nov. 7, 2020 in Philadelphia.
AFP via Getty Images
Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and Four Seasons Total Landscaping never talked about payment terms before the Philadelphia landscaper hosted Rudy Giuliani’s infamous press conference in November.
“Compensation was never discussed, but we made out just fine. Feel free to peruse our broad selection of merchandise at www.fstl1992.com/shop,” Sean Middleton, Four Seasons Total Landscaping director of sales, wrote in an email to Forbes on Monday.
While Federal Election Commission regulations require campaigns to report in-kind contributions of more than $200, it’s not immediately clear what the value of the setting was to the Trump campaign. “It’s possible that the campaign qualified the use of the property as an in-kind donation,” Middleton said. “But these terms were never discussed with the campaign staff.” The FEC database also shows no record of either a payment to or contribution from Four Seasons Total Landscaping.
Representatives from the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry.
On Nov. 7, just as many major news outlets called the presidential election for Joe Biden, Trump attorney Giuliani tried to spread false election conspiracy theories from behind a Trump 2020 lectern at Four Seasons Total Landscaping. The spectacle quickly became ensconced in popular culture, with the internet roasting Trump’s operatives for holding an event at a landscaping company located next to an adult bookstore, rather than a Four Seasons hotel.
Meanwhile the Trump campaign has paid a different Four Seasons landscaping company. On Dec. 15, the campaign committee handed Four Seasons Landscape and Property Services of Santa Clarita, California $48,000 for event staging. That firm is not connected to the similarly named one in Philadelphia though.
The California company did in fact perform work for the campaign. According to Dan Blumel, president of Four Seasons Landscape and Property Service, one of his company’s clients in Beverly Hills included the firm in preparations for a Trump event in October. “My staff met with the RNC,” he said. “The Secret Service was there. They built a stage. There was a lot of landscaping that went in. We did the work in full and were paid in full.”
“And then,” he added, “the event got cancelled because Trump got Covid.”
Trump Victory paid Four Seasons Landscape and Property Service of California $48,000 in December. Four Seasons Total Landscaping of Philadelphia though has not yet been paid.
FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION/TRUMP VICTORY
I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the
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I took an unusual route to get here. In a past life, I worked as a travel and food writer, which is how I got the assignment in 2016 to cover the grand opening of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., just a couple miles from my home. When Trump won the election and refused to divest his business, I stayed on the story, starting a newsletter called 1100 Pennsylvania (named after the hotel’s address) and contributed to Vanity Fair, Politico and NBC News. I’m still interested in Trump, but I’ve broadened my focus to follow the money connected to other politicians as well—both Republicans and Democrats.