The funeral for President Trump’s brother Robert, who passed away last Saturday at the age of 71, will be held in the East Room of the White House Friday afternoon, CNN reports.
Robert Trump, who never worked a day in public service or spent any time in the military, was a lifelong New Yorker. He helped to run Trump Organization businesses, including running the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, which went bankrupt in 1991 and again in 2016.
The East Room has been used for funerals in the past, typically for the spouses and children of people who worked in the White House. Abraham Lincoln held the funeral for his 11-year-old son, Willie, in the East Room in 1862.
In 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt hosted a state funeral in the East Room for his longtime political adviser and close friend Louis Howe. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison utilized the East Room for funeral services for the wife and daughter of his Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Tracy. The two women were killed in a fire.
This seems, however, to be the first funeral for a person who never lived in the White House or who was married to someone who worked in the White House.