State Department removes Trump's Florida resort blog post

The State Department has removed a blog post that touted President Donald Trump's personally owned private Florida report, Mar-a-Lago, the media reported.

The post was available to all embassies through Share America, a State Department programme for US embassies, reports CNN.

"The intention of the article was to inform the public about where the President has been hosting world leaders," a message said on the Share America website on Monday.

"We regret any misperception and have removed the post"

The story is still up on the US Embassy in London's website, but officials have said the post is expected to be removed.

In a markedly promotional blog post from April 5, the embassy writes that the property has "become well known as the President frequently travels there to work or host foreign leaders", reports CNN.

The Share America story, which labels Mar-a-Lago the "winter White House", a term Trump has taken to using, goes through the history of the property and how the President was set to host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the property in April.

The Mar-a-Lago has already seemingly benefited from Trump's presidency.

It raised its initiation fee from $100,000 to $200,000 after Trump was elected and members.

"Aggressively begging foreign countries to funnel money straight into Trump's pocket is a clear violation of the Constitution's emoluments clause, but that's precisely what the State Department is doing by openly promoting one of the Trumps' private businesses," CNN quoted Shripal Shah, vice president of American Bridge, a Democratic firm, as saying on Monday.

"It's a gross abuse of taxpayer resources and flagrant violation of the law from an administration that thinks rules don't apply to them."

--IANS

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