by Donald J. Trump’s companies received at least $7.8 million from 20 foreign governments during his presidency, according to new documents released by House Democrats on Thursday that show how much he received from foreign transactions while he was in office. the White House, most of China. .
The transactions, detailed in a 156-page report titled “The White House for Sale” which was crafted by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, offers concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have worked, so far unsuccessfully, to demonstrate. that President Biden did as they worked to build an impeachment case against him. .
Using documents Produced through a court fight, the report describes how foreign governments and their controlled entities, including a major U.S. adversary, interacted with Trump’s companies while he was president. They paid millions to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC; Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas; Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York; and Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York.
The Constitution prohibits a president from accepting money, payments or gifts “of any kind” from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains “the consent of Congress” to do so. The report notes that Trump never went to Congress to seek consent.
House Democrats highlighted the transactions Thursday as a counterweight to Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Biden, which has sought to tie him to his son Hunter Biden’s international trade deals before his father became president in an attempt to demonstrate corruption or influence peddling. So far they have not been able to prove that President Biden was in any way enriched by any of these transactions.
“By elevating his personal financial interests and the political priorities of corrupt foreign powers above the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent established and observed by all previous commanders in chief,” he said. Rep. Jamie Raskin. of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, wrote in the report’s foreword.
Among the countries that sponsor Trump properties, China made the largest total payment ($5.5 million) to his business interests, according to the report. Those payments included millions of dollars from the Chinese Embassy in the United States, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Hainan Airlines Holding.
Saudi Arabia was the second-biggest spender, shelling out more than $615,000 on Trump World Tower and the Trump International Hotel.
Eric Trump, the former president’s son, has long insisted that foreign interests had no influence on his father’s presidency and that any profits the company made from hotel stays were returned to the federal government through a voluntary annual payment to the Treasury Department.
But Raskin noted Thursday that donating profits to the Treasury does not meet the constitutional requirements imposed on a president.
On Thursday, Eric Trump said in an email that the Chinese bank mentioned in the report had signed a 20-year lease on Trump Tower in 2008, nearly a decade before his father took office. And he argued that it was clear that the former president had not allowed his personal business incentives to drive his official actions.
“That narrative is crazy,” Eric Trump said of the Democrats’ report. He added that “there is no president in American history who has been tougher on China than Donald Trump,” citing the substantial tariffs the former president imposed on the country’s goods and services. He also said the Trump Organization “did not have the ability or feasibility to prevent anyone from booking through third parties” at the hotel.
House Republicans also dismissed the revelations, arguing that there was nothing wrong with Trump receiving income from foreign governments while president, but that Biden’s family business was corrupt.
“Former President Trump has legitimate businesses, but the Bidens do not,” Rep. James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky and chairman of the oversight panel, said in a statement Thursday. He charged that the Bidens had earned more than three times as much as new records show Trump had earned from foreign governments “by cashing in on the Biden name,” adding that “no goods or services were provided other than access to Joe.” Biden and the Biden network.”
The Democrats’ report acknowledges its own limitations. Democrats fought aggressively through years of litigation to gain access to only a portion of Trump’s business records. After winning court rulings, Mazars USA, Trump’s accounting firm that cut ties with him and his family business, began in 2022 turning over documents related to his financial dealings.
The development came after Mazars said he could no longer support a decade of annual financial statements he had prepared for the Trump Organization.
But once Republicans gained control of Congress, they abandoned the attempt to force Mazars to continue producing documents about Trump’s business dealings.
Comer made clear that he had abandoned any investigation into the former president’s financial dealings and was instead focusing on whether Biden and members of his family were involved in an influence-peddling scheme.
Still, Democrats say they received key material before the investigation was closed.
“Critically, even this subset of documents reveals a stunning web of millions of dollars in payments made by foreign governments and their agents directly to Trump-owned companies while President Trump was in the White House,” the report states. “These payments were made while these governments promoted specific foreign policy objectives with the Trump administration and even, at times, with President Trump himself, and while they requested specific actions from the United States to promote their own domestic policy objectives.”
The report is the result of a multi-year investigation into Trump’s receipt of payments from foreign-controlled entities while he was in office. The investigation began in 2016 under the leadership of Representative Elijah E. Cummings, Democrat of Maryland, who died in 2019.
He noted that Trump sometimes boasted about the wealth foreign governments had provided him, including at a campaign rally in 2015, when he suggested that his personal financial incentives could influence his dealings with another government.
“Saudi Arabia, I get along very well with all of them,” the report quotes him as saying. “They buy me apartments. They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to not like them? I like them very much!”
The report urges Congress to consider adopting new disclosure rules to help the legislative branch obtain information for proper oversight. It also recommends a more formal procedure for presidents and other officials to request permission from Congress when they receive and want to retain wealth from other countries.
