Reports had alleged that the Trump Organization “pressured the ambassador” to switch to the Trump International Hotel. | Getty Kuwait envoy: Trump aides didn't push me to book his hotel

Kuwait's ambassador to the United States is denying a report that he was pressured by associates of Donald Trump to host a major celebration at the president-elect’s hotel in Washington instead of its usual venue, the Four Seasons.

Salem Al-Sabah said he decided to schedule Kuwait’s National Day event on Feb. 25 at the Trump hotel because he’d heard good reviews about it and thought that it would draw more guests.


“We were not under any pressure. Nobody contacted us whatsoever,” Al-Sabah said. “I just thought ‘It’s a new venue, it’s been in the news. … The novelty of the venue would encourage people' — that was first on my mind.”

ThinkProgress, a publication affiliated with the Democratic-leaning think tank Center for American Progress, published a story Monday alleging that the Kuwaitis had canceled their reservation at the Four Seasons hotel in Georgetown after people in the Trump Organization “pressured the ambassador” to switch to the Trump International Hotel.

Al-Sabah called the ThinkProgress report “totally false and unfounded.” Still, he said he had a tentative “save-the-date” understanding with the Four Seasons, where the event was frequently held in the past, although he'd never signed a formal contract. He also pointed out that his country, a small, but wealthy Middle East ally of the United States, held the same event at the Newseum in 2016.

Regardless of Kuwait's intentions, the report is just the latest to raise questions about foreign diplomats holding gatherings at Trump properties and whether there are potential conflicts of interest for the president-elect and his businesses. Bahrain, for instance, held its national day celebrations at Trump’s D.C. hotel.

While Al-Sabah acknowledged that he’d decided to hold the gathering at Trump’s hotel after the Republican won the presidency on Nov. 8, he said the only reason was that the site had been open for business just a few weeks and he heard rave reviews about it after the election.

Al-Sabah also dismissed perceptions that Kuwait was trying to impress the incoming president.

“Do you think a reception of two hours in the Trump hotel is going to curry favors with the administration when we host thousands of U.S. troops in Kuwait? When we have in the past and still do support American operations in Afghanistan and Iraq?” the ambassador asked. “Our relationship is much deeper and much broader than me needing to be in a hotel for two hours.”

ThinkProgress updated its piece on Tuesday to reflect Al-Sabah’s statements. One of the story’s authors, Judd Legum, defended its contents, noting he’d repeatedly contacted the Kuwaiti Embassy for comment ahead of the initial report and was not given a response. “I stand by my story,” Legum wrote in an email.

The Trump hotel hosted dozens of diplomats at a post-election reception in mid-November — invitations went out before Election Day — to sell them on the new venue, but Lynn Van Fleit, founder of the nonprofit Diplomacy Matters Institute, said none of the salespeople mentioned the president-elect.

“In my opinion, it was conspicuously absent,” she told POLITICO. “They were doing their jobs. If certain nations are perceiving they can have a certain relationship close to Trump because they’re booking events at the hotel they may feel that way. But I just think the people at the Trump hotel were doing their job.”

The Trump hotel is doing its part to attract embassy business, hiring away the diplomatic sales director from the Four Seasons — Heidi Kirby — in October 2015.

“Those salespeople are the ones who have the relationships. They are the ones who court them,” Van Fleit said. “That’s just the way that the international hospitality and hotel industries work. They build relationships in the embassies. That’s why it’s so important for so many hotels to have diplomatic sales managers. Trump didn’t invent the position of diplomatic sales manager.”

Van Fleit said a similar shift in diplomatic business occurred when the Mandarin Oriental opened in Washington D.C., in 2004, and business shifted away from the Willard Intercontinental, St. Regis and Hay Adams.

A Trump hotel spokeswoman said the hotel policy is to never comment on guests or prospective clients.