Trump is first modern president to hire his customers ? including as US ambassadors

(Photo: Don Emmert, AFP/Getty Images)WASHINGTON – When President Donald Trump needed an ambassador to represent the United States in Romania, he enlisted a real estate lawyer who was a member of one of his private golf clubs.For South Africa and the Dominican Republic, he tapped longtime members of his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. To represent the U.S. government in Hungary, he chose a man from another Florida club operated by the president’s private companies.Ambassadorships long have been among Washington’s choicest political prizes, and presidents frequently award them to friends, political allies and campaign donors.“There was always a country club mentality with some of this,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan group that investigates government ethics.The difference now is that the president also is the country club’s proprietor, and he has handed out foreign postings and other government jobs to his paying customers.Membership rolls of Trump's clubs are not public. Watchdog groups that monitor government ethics said the nominations reflect a troubling intersection between Trump’s private business interests and his role as the nation’s chief executive.“You have to question whether these members of his clubs are getting these appointments because they deserve them or because they’re his paying customers,” said Jordan Libowitz, the communications director for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has been sharply critical of Trump’s decision to retain ownership of his businesses while in the White House.“You get into really bad territory when people start wondering if the president has put the government up for sale.”Early in his administration, Trump signaled his intent to nominate other Mar-a-Lago members to foreign posts. Neither has been nominated.The new spate of foreign service nominations aren’t the only place in which Trump’s administration intersects with his customers.Trump previously named Callista Gingrich, a longtime member of his Virginia golf club and wife of former House speaker and Trump confidant Newt Gingrich, as the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.