T-Mobile has spent $195,000 at Trump hotel while lobbying for Sprint merger

Follow-up reporting revealed that T-Mobile executives had booked at least 52 nights at the hotel.Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) sent a letter to Legere asking a series of questions about the hotel visits, and T-Mobile revealed the $195,000 figure in a response to that letter."The American people deserve better than an administration that appears to be for sale to businesses eager to line the president's pockets," Warren and Jayapal said in a joint statement today."These transactions raise questions about whether T-Mobile is attempting to curry favor with the president through the Trump Organization and exacerbate our concerns about the president's continued financial relationship with the Trump Organization," the lawmakers had written in their letter to Legere.T-Mobile's response, written by VP of Federal Legislative Affairs Anthony Russo, noted that the $195,000 is "approximately 14 percent of the $1.4 million T-Mobile incurred at hotels in Washington, DC during the same period for travel and other business-related activities." T-Mobile said it spent $750,000 at Hilton hotels in DC in the same period.But T-Mobile executives hardly ever stayed at Trump's DC hotel before announcing their Sprint merger. In Washington, DC the Trump hotel is located close by my company office located at 601 Pennsylvania Avenue and the Department of Justice."Legere answered "no" to the question of whether T-Mobile's visits to the Trump hotel were part of its strategy to obtain merger approval.Legere has said he expects to obtain merger approval by the end of June.As we noted in previous coverage, Legere swore off Trump hotels in 2015 after Trump wrote on Twitter that "T-Mobile service is terrible" and "I don't want it in my buildings." Legere subsequently criticized Trump's hotels in two tweets, which he has since deleted.The Warren/Jayapal letter to Legere said, "you had a particularly high profile during your stay [one day after the merger announcement], walking the lobby in an outfit described as 'a walking billboard for T-Mobile,' posing for Instagram pictures, and, during a later stay, meeting in the lobby with former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski." The lawmakers also wrote that the use of Trump's hotel seemed unusual given Legere's previous mockery of a Trump hotel in New York.In his response to Warren and Jayapal, Legere said that he always wears T-Mobile clothing."As a disruptor in the wireless industry and someone who is fighting for our customers and employees I have chosen to personally represent them and the T-Mobile brand that I am so proud of," Legere wrote.