WASHINGTON—-A new report documents 64 politicians, interest groups, corporations and entities affiliated with foreign governments that used Trump-branded properties in the past year.

The report released Tuesday by Public Citizen, a liberal-funded watchdog group based in Washington, comes about a year after President Donald Trump stepped away from day-to-day management of the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump retained financial interest in the company through a trust and can draw money from it at any time.

Government-ethics specialists say that because the president continues to profit from his business interests, it is important to catalog who is spending money at them. The Trump Organization, now led by Mr. Trump’s sons Don Jr. and Eric Trump, is a global real-estate development, property management and licensing company.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment and referred questions to the Trump Organization. The company didn’t reply to requests for comment. Mr. Trump and White House officials have previously disputed that his financial ties to his company posed any ethics challenges.

A group of lawyers including several ex-White House ethics counselors sued the president alleging he is violating a clause of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits officials from accepting payments from foreign and domestic governments. A federal judge in Manhattan threw out that suit in December, saying the plaintiffs failed to show how they had been harmed. Similar lawsuits are pending.


The Trump Organization said it would transfer profits earned from foreign government payments by guests at his hotel properties to the U.S. Treasury, but the company has declined to provide information about how it tracks that money. A spokeswoman for the Trump Hotel Group said last month that the company expects to have information to share at the end of February.

Public Citizen documented, through news reports and other material, either foreign governments or groups with ties to foreign countries that have paid for events at Trump International Hotel in Washington. The hotel opened just weeks before Mr. Trump won the presidential election and is housed in the government-owned Old Post Office Building, just down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his delegation stayed at the Trump International Hotel during a September 2017 visit to Washington. A spokeswoman for the Malaysian embassy didn’t respond to a request for comment Monday. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters at the time that the White House didn’t book the accommodations for visiting dignitaries.

Foreign Agent Registration Act documents show a firm tied to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia paid $270,000 to the Washington hotel for lodging, catering and parking during a lobbying campaign last year to overturn a law allowing terrorism victims to sue foreign governments. Neither Saudi Arabian officials nor the firm representing them could be reached for comment Monday.


The Kuwait Embassy held a National Day celebration party in February at the Washington hotel. Embassy officials couldn’t be reached Monday. The Turkey-U. S. Business Council and the American Turkish Council, two groups connected to the Turkish government, held a conference in May at the Washington hotel. The groups have scheduled their 2018 conference at the hotel, according to the Turkey-U. S. Business Council’s website.

A spokeswoman for the Turkey-U.S. Business Council said the site was chosen following negotiations that began a year before Mr. Trump was elected and that the Turkish groups received a discount for signing a two-year contract.

Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, alleged some of the Trump property patrons chronicled in the report likely are “trying to gain some leverage with the administration.”

“The motive varies from event to event, but a number of these seem clearly for the purposes of ingratiating with the president,” he said.


The Public Citizen report documents 35 political candidates and committees that spent money at Trump properties, culling the information from public campaign-finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission. The amounts ranged from $118 for a meal paid by Rep. Peter King’s re-election committee to $177,104 for fundraising events and parties hosted by the Republican National Committee. The party has a continuing joint fundraising agreement with Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign. An RNC spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In addition, Mr. Trump’s re-election campaign spent more than $630,000 last year on Trump properties, FEC records show. Most of that money was rent for its headquarters space at Trump Tower in New York. Campaign officials didn’t not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. King, a New York Republican, said he enjoys dining and visiting the Trump hotel in Washington, calling it “a bit of a tourist attraction” that constituents request to visit.

“It’s great for political junkies, because when you go, you run into somebody, reporters, pollsters, members of the administration,” he said. If you appear on Fox News, said Mr. King, a frequent guest of the channel, “you’re treated as a bit of a celebrity, with people coming up and wanting to take pictures and talk to you.”


He laughed at the idea that his spending at the hotel would win him favor from the president. “If I wanted to do that, I think voting for his tax bill might have been a better idea.” Mr. King voted against the tax legislation last year because it raises rates for many New Yorkers by reducing the federal deductions available for local property tax.

Public Citizen found 16 trade groups that have spent money at Trump properties. For example, in March, top executives at companies that are members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce held a conference at Trump National Doral, a golf course near Miami. “The Chamber rents space from all types of hotels and event spaces across the country for our various events,” said Blair Latoff Holmes, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Oxbow Carbon LLC, a petroleum coke and sulfur company led by billionaire William Koch held its holiday party in December at Mar-a-Lago, a Trump-owned club in Palm Beach, Fla. And GEO Group, a private prison company led by George Zoley, hosted its annual leadership conference in October at Trump National Doral.

“Over the years, we have held company and employee meetings at a variety of venues around the country, and as a Florida-based company, we have held meetings throughout the state, including at Doral in the past,” said GEO Group spokesman Pablo Paez.

Brad Goldstein, a spokesman for Oxbow, said the location was chosen for convenience. The company’s headquarters are in nearby West Palm Beach, and Mr. Koch lives within walking distance of Mar-a-Lago, where he is a member of the club. Mr. Goldstein said Oxbow also held a party at Mar-a-Lago in the years before Mr. Trump became president. “We rotate around the area,” he said.

Recent financial reports show revenues are down at several Trump golf courses, including in New York and Scotland. In director’s reports, Eric Trump attributed those drops to declining oil prices and renovations at the Scotland golf courses. Nearby oil fields in the North Sea are an economic driver for the area, and Trump Organization officials say locals spent less as prices fell.

But financial disclosure reports Mr. Trump filed earlier this year show Mar-a-Lago has improved its financial situation compared with a year earlier. In the 16-month period ended April 15, Mr. Trump reported $37.2 million in revenue from Mar-a-Lago, $7.5 million more than he reported earning from the resort in his previous financial disclosure.

The private club, which also serves as a Trump family vacation home, doubled initiation rates for members to $200,000 in the months after Mr. Trump became president. The Trump International Hotel in Washington raised its rates in the months after he became president to about 60% higher from what it had planned to charge, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The president spent nearly one-third of his first year in office at Trump-branded properties, the Journal has reported.

Write to Julie Bykowicz at julie.bykowicz@wsj.com