Nevada’s Dina Titus to chair House Transportation subcommittee

WASHINGTON — Democrats elected Rep. Dina Titus on Thursday to serve as chairwoman of the House Transportation subcommittee on economic development, public buildings and emergency management — a position key to infrastructure improvements in Nevada.

As a senior member of the full committee and a subcommittee chairwoman, Titus will have authority over proposed infrastructure improvements sought in Nevada, like highways and airport expansion.

Titus, whose congressional district is within the city of Las Vegas, also vowed subcommittee scrutiny into President Donald Trump’s business interests at the General Services Administration-leased Old Post Office Building in Washington, home of the Trump International Hotel.

Titus last week cited a GSA inspector general’s report on the Trump hotel lease in her vow to use the subcommittee to determine whether the president continues to profit on the deal in violation of the Constitution.

“I will try to get the answers the American people deserve by conducting oversight of Donald Trump’s attempts to prevent the relocation of the FBI headquarters and to profit from his presidency at his DC hotel,” Titus said in a statement.

Republicans elected Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina, a founder of the conservative Freedom Caucus, to serve as ranking member of the subcommittee.

A newsletter that follows Trump-held properties, 1100 Pennsylvania, reported that Titus was at the hotel in May to receive an award from a pro-Cyprus group that held a conference there.

A spokesman for Titus said she appeared at the hotel for an award without knowing in advance of the location of the event.

“She has never spent a penny at a Trump property, and she will not allow this distraction to prevent her from doing her job to hold this administration accountable for its gross misconduct,” the spokesman said.

The state of Maryland, the District of Columbia and 200 Democrats in Congress have filed lawsuits seeking disclosure of Trump’s business interests in the hotel and whether he is profiting from foreign government officials who have booked events and rooms there.

A lawyer representing Trump has said in legal filings that there has been no violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause regarding the president’s interest with the hotel.

The Trump International Hotel is at the center of another controversy that House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee leaders have vowed to explore.

Congressional Democrats plan to investigate claims that Trump was at a meeting weeks before the FBI changed plans to move from the building across the street, opening that property up for lease to a possible competitor to the hotel.

A liberal-leaning watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said plans to relocate the FBI to another location, after 12 years and $20 million in research and planning, were approved by the GSA.

But the decision to relocate the law enforcement agency was abandoned after Trump became president.

The decision to “spike” the move occurred just weeks after a meeting was held with White House officials and the president, the inspector general determined in a report last year.

Titus said her subcommittee would look into that issue and whether the president used his influence to sway the decision not to relocate the FBI.

Contact Gary Martin at gmartin@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7390. Follow @garymartindc on Twitter.