Donald Trump's company violated its own rules on day one of presidency

Donald Trump’s company violated their own rules on day one of his presidency. And Twitter is again at the centre of the controversy.

A few moments before Mr Trump was due to walk past his five-star international hotel in Washington, the hotel tweeted a picture of its staff outside the building waving the American flags with the message “We are waiting for you Mr President! Thank you!”.

Top Democrats and ethics advisers have seen the hotel as being at the heart of Mr Trump’s conflict of interests.

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The Trump International Hotel in Pennsylvania Avenue was the base of the inaugural activities on Friday, but the tweet breached the company’s self-set policy that it would make no references to Mr Trump’s role as President – including on social media.

Prior to his inauguration, Mr Trump handed control to his international real estate development, property management and licensing company to his sons Donald Jr and Eric Trump.

Critics said the move did not solve conflict of interest problems between the presidency and Mr Trump’s corporate vested interests.

But in response, the company took voluntary measures and said it would not enter into any international deals, promised to hire a compliance and ethics adviser to vet domestic deals, donate foreign profit from its hotels and refrain from doing anything that could be perceived as exploiting the presidency.

A briefing released earlier this month by a company attorney read: “The Trump Organisation has directed that no communications of the organisation, including social media accounts, will reference or otherwise be tied to President-elect Trump’s role as President of the United States or the office of the presidency.”

But since these measures were taken voluntarily, there are few means to ensure Mr Trump and his company will follow their own rules through.

The tweet from his Washington hotel on his very first day as President might suggest otherwise. Trump organisation representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Patricia Tang, the Washington hotel’s director of sales and marketing said: “We have nothing to do with the administration. We have nothing to do with the presidency. We just want to be the best possible luxury hotel that we can be.”

Questions have also been raised at the mention of “no foreign deal” in the company’s self-imposed rules.

Earlier this week, the company confirmed it planned to expand at one of its Scottish resorts, including plans to add a golf course. A spokeswoman for the resort said this was part of an expansion plan that had been agreed years ago and was just another “phase” so it did not break the company’s rules.

Chief ethics lawyer under former President George W Bush, Richard Painter, thought otherwise and said every phase of a real estate project is “like a new deal”.

Mr Painter also told Forbes: “He has all of the conflicts of interest that he had before. We don’t know who his business partners are, we don’t know who he owes.”

“I hope we don’t have a terrorist attack on some building with his name on it. I hope we don’t have an international crisis in a country where he has a lot of money invested. If Turkey and Russia get in a fight or something, it’s not a question about, ‘well, what about my hotel?’”