A Washington, D.C. restaurant is crying foul on the U.S. president.
Owners of the Cork Wine Bar are suing President Donald Trump and his new D.C. hotel, claiming that the recently-opened luxury property is hurting business due to an unfair advantage.
According to NPR, restaurant owners Diane Gross and Khalid Pitts filed the lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court Wednesday. It claims the hotel is luring politicians and other officials away from the bar and other nearby businesses because of its ties to the president.
"We feel that the president of the United States, owning a hotel, owning restaurants, promoting those restaurants, is unfair and to the detriment of other businesses in the city," Pitts said at a press conference Thursday.
Gross and Pitts aren't seeking money from the suit. Instead, they want Trump to divest from the property or close it for the duration of his presidency. Eater DC reported lawyers for the restaurant owners have welcomed other businesses to join the suit as plaintiffs.
Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten called the lawsuit "a wild publicity stunt completely lacking in legal merit," according to NPR.
"You know, obviously, the president has made very clear in that December press conference at Trump Tower, he doesn't have conflicts and he's done everything in accordance with the guidance that he's been given and gone well beyond what he ever needed to do," White House press secretary Sean Spicer during a press briefing Thursday.
In January, Trump said that he planned to donate the profits his hotels earn from stays by foreign government officials to the U.S. Treasury.
[READMORE] READ MORE: Donald Trump's New DC Hotel Ranked Among Worst of 2016[/READMORE]
However, Trump's D.C. hotel has been a source of controversy from the very beginning, with a group of House Democrats calling on the president to divest from the property prior to the time he took office on Jan. 20.
The hotel is housed in the Old Post Office Building, which the General Services Administration (GSA) leased to the Trump Organization in 2013. However, a provision in the lease states that no elected official can be on the lease or benefit from it.
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