Europe’s first Trump International Hotel might not happen thanks to an “embarrassing” scandal involving the Serbian government, Rachel Maddow said during a segment on the state corruption that has jeopardized the deal.
The Trump and Kushner families had planned to tear down a national monument in Belgrade and build a $500 million luxury hotel and residence on the site, Maddow explained. But the deal is in jeopardy after the official who signed off on the monument’s demolition admitted to forging the document to authorize the destruction.
The official faked an expert opinion saying the site could be stripped of its cultural heritage status, and now faces criminal charges of abuse of office and forgery of official documents, The New York Times reported last week.
“Darn that rule of law. If it wasn’t for the remaining rule of law and for those meddling kids. Now, maybe there never will be a Trump Tower in Europe,” Maddow said during Monday night’s show.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s company told the Times in a statement, “We will review this matter and determine next steps.”
“Womp, womp, sad trombone,” Maddow said.
The site in question is the former Yugoslav Ministry of Defense headquarters that was heavily damaged in a 1999 NATO bombing campaign.
The forged document provided a legal basis for stripping the complex of its protected historic status, according to the Times.
During her segment, Maddow said the forgery was uncovered amid a massive, “relentless” protest movement that began in November after a concrete canopy at train station collapsed in Novi Sad, Serbia’s second-largest city, killing 16 people.
The collapse shone a light on government corruption, Maddow said. As protesters took to the streets in Serbia, Donald Trump Jr. visited the country to try to prop up its “very Trumpy” president, she added.
“There was a whole new round of protests in Serbia specifically against this deal, against that country’s president, trading away a site of national, cultural and historical significance for a development deal that personally benefits Donald Trump and his family,” she said.
Kushner’s company Affinity Partners said in a statement to the Times that it had played no role in the review of the site’s cultural status. Opposition leaders have nevertheless accused the Serbian government of forging the cultural heritage document specifically to “make room for the Trumps.”
“It’s amazing how corruption makes things go so well and so easy and so fast—for a second,” Maddow said. “Before it all goes to heck, right, before the people absolutely cotton to what you’re doing and they figure out a way to stop it.”
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