While the Ukraine scandal has thrown a harsh light on the bipartisan tradition of rewarding top campaign donors with ambassadorships, in the case of Gordon Sondland, it has also brought unwanted scrutiny to the hotelier’s fondness for sumptuous interiors. Ordinarily, the position of U.S. ambassador to the European Union is among the more technocratic postings available inside the State Department, encompassing a Brussels office staffed by bookish diplomats with expertise on issues like data privacy and energy security. Sondland, who donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, was also interested in the drapes.

According to government spending reports, Sondland is overseeing extensive renovations at the U.S. embassy on Rue Zinner, just down the street from the royal Parc de Bruxelles. The renovations might have gone unnoticed had Sondland not become ensnared in the House impeachment inquiry into the Trump administration’s apparent effort to solicit dirt on Joe Biden. Now, chatter has picked up among diplomats about the ambassador’s makeover of the embassy, which has included a new pool-Jacuzzi heating system and a professional kitchen remodel.

It’s not unheard of for ambassadors to make changes to their diplomatic residences. As one former ambassador explained, “These things cost money and they are old buildings and they do require upkeep.” Nor is it atypical for diplomats to refresh properties to their liking—perhaps new carpeting, a fresh paint job. But it is the extent of the renovations on the Brussels residence that is raising eyebrows.

A sampling of State Department contracts reveals that since September 2018—just a few months after Sondland’s Senate confirmation—the embassy in Brussels has been awarded $95,109 for a pergola, $13,301 for a pool-Jacuzzi heating system, $33,625 on wooden household furniture, $208,683 on a professional kitchen remodel, and two bathroom renovations, one costing $53,809 and the other $82,354. Additionally, the State Department spent $103,748 on a hotel, to ostensibly serve as an alternate residence to the embassy while the building undergoes renovations for months of September and October of this year. (In a statement, a spokesperson for the State Department confirmed that updates to the residence had been funded in 2019 “as part of its regular 17-year cycle of reviewing and refreshing furnishings and interior décor in representational residences.”)

All told, these expenditures—just a snapshot of what the U.S. embassy in Brussels has been awarded by the State Department since Sondland’s confirmation—amount to more than half a million dollars in taxpayer funding. “You don’t get to just renovate the kitchen on taxpayer dollars. It is a lot of money,” the former ambassador quipped.

Indeed, the work being done at the residence seems to stretch beyond necessity into extravagance. Take for instance, the more than $95,000 that was spent on a pergola, typically an outdoor garden or patio feature. According to a State Department document outlining the scope of the work for the project, the specifications for the pergola—or “outdoor living pod”—include windows with built-in blinds, tilting aluminum slats, LED lighting, electric heating, and a remote control system.

A person who had spoken with Sondland about the renovations told the Washington Post that the U.S. embassy was “nearly unusable for representational purposes,” and noted that the upgrades cost less than moving the embassy to another location, which was proposed and scrapped during the Barack Obama administration. But a source knowledgeable about the state of the Brussels residence told me that it was “in excellent condition” before Sondland’s arrival. “It is a beautiful building, in great shape,” this person added.

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