Why Democrats feel it could be the “tip of the iceberg.”
A new report is shedding some light on Republican frontrunner Donald Trump’s business practices when he was still in the White House. On Tuesday, House Democrats revealed that the former president’s empire received at least $7.8 million in payments from 20 countries.
Unlike Republicans in their efforts to find President Biden guilty of corruption, Democrats have receipts — 451 pages of them that span roughly two years. Together, they show payments to Trump’s businesses from foreign officials, who were likely trying to influence the U.S. government. But Democrats say this evidence could be just the beginning.
“What we have is essentially the tip of the iceberg,” Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia told reporters following the news. “So this $7.8 million is just a small window ― obviously a significant amount of money, but a small window ― into what is likely a fairly large sum of money and gifts.”
As this brings renewed scrutiny to Trump’s empire, here’s what the report found and how it relates to Republicans’ efforts to impeach Biden.
What did the report find about Trump’s foreign funding?
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee focused on payments to the Trump hotels in Washington, Las Vegas, and New York; and Trump Tower in Manhattan.
During his presidency, the Trump International Hotel in Washington bro many foreign diplomats and dignitaries. And it shows: He raked in more than $40 million from the D.C. hotel in 2017, and then another $40.8 million the next year, according to his 2019 financial disclosure reports.
Despite Trump’s frequent criticism of China, the country shelled out the most to his businesses at $5.5 million. This included payments from China’s Embassy in the United States, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and the Hainan Airlines Holding Company. Commercial Bank of China also leased property at Trump Tower in New York.
As noted by The New York Times, Democrats suggested in their report that the payments might’ve impacted the Trump administration’s decision not to sanction the bank for its ties to North Korea in 2017 amid nuclear missile threats.
Another foreign adversary, Saudi Arabia, was the second-largest spender, paying more than $615,000 at the Trump World Tower and Trump International Hotel. During a 2015 campaign rally in Alabama, Trump boasted that Saudi nationals had spent millions of dollars on his apartments.
“Saudi Arabia, I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million,” he said. “Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!”
What have Trump’s allies said about the report?
Trump’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., maintain that their father has never been swayed by foreign interests.
In response to the report, Eric said the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China signed a 20-year lease long before Trump took office in 2017. He went on to point out that the Trump Organization did “not have the ability or viability to stop someone from booking through third parties” at the hotel. “There is no president in United States history who was tougher on China than Donald Trump,” Eric told The New York Times.
Unsurprisingly, House Republicans, including Rep. Jim Jordan, also dismissed the report’s findings, arguing that there was nothing wrong with Trump’s businesses receiving revenue from foreign governments while he was president. “President Trump did so many good things for the country, did more of what he said he would do as president than any president, certainly in my lifetime,” he said.
Others deflected when asked about the report. GOP Rep. James Comer issued a statement attacking Biden amid accusations that the president improperly benefited from his son Hunter Biden’s business deals in Ukraine and China. “Former President Trump has legitimate businesses, but the Bidens do not,” Comer said.
Did Trump break any laws with his business practices?
That’s what Democrats are alleging in their latest report on Trump. Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said that even though profits from the former president’s hotels were ultimately returned to the federal government as his son claims, his donation of profits to the Treasury Department fell short of constitutional requirements.
Under the U.S. Constitution, presidents are prohibited from accepting gifts or emoluments from kings, princes, or foreign states. That is unless they obtain “the consent of the Congress” to do so, which Trump didn’t follow. The current Republican frontrunner has faced three emoluments lawsuits, but the Supreme Court dismissed one and rendered the two others moot after he left the White House in January 2021.
Democrats don’t think that means the former president is by any means innocent.
“The founders were emphatic that the president of the United States be someone who gets his money not from foreign governments, but rather from Americans,” said Raskin.
Even though Trump turned over day-to-day operations of his businesses to his sons when he took office, he declined to get rid of his assets and retained “personal ownership and control of all his businesses,” the report stated.
How does this relate to Republicans’ ongoing investigation into President Biden?
These allegations against Trump are eerily similar to those levied by Republicans against Biden. The main difference is Democrats have proof, whereas Republicans haven’t been able to find any significant cash flows to the president. That is except for four separate $1,380 transfers that were loan reimbursements for truck payments the president made on his son’s behalf in 2018.
Comer, who’s also the House oversight committee chair, has nevertheless said that because Hunter Biden’s money came from foreign sources, the payments to his father were corrupt.
Still, Democrats aren’t concerned that the GOP’s impeachment inquiry into Biden will turn up anything of consequence. “They found nothing, and look what we’ve been able to determine when we finally were able to extract just two years of information,” Raskin said.
