Trump firms got foreign payments
Received $7.8m during presidency, Democrats say
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s businesses 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 overseas transactions while he was in the White House, most of it from China.
The transactions, detailed in a 156-page report called “White House For Sale” that was produced by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, offer concrete evidence that the former president engaged in the kind of conduct that House Republicans have labored, so far unsuccessfully, to prove that President Biden did as they work 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 top US adversary, interacted with Trump businesses while he was president. They paid millions to the Trump International Hotel in Washington, Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, and Trump Tower and Trump World Tower, both in New York.
House Democrats highlighted the transactions on Thursday as a counterweight to Republicans’ impeachment inquiry into Biden, which has sought to tie him to international business deals by his son Hunter Biden before his father became president in a bid to prove corruption or influence peddling. They have so far failed to show that Joe Biden was enriched in any way by any of those transactions.
“By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous commander in chief,” Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, wrote in a foreword to the report.
Among the countries patronizing Trump’s properties, China made the largest total payment to his business interests, the report found. Those payments included millions of dollars from China’s Embassy in the United States, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, and Hainan Airlines Holding Co.
Saudi Arabia was the secondlargest spender, shelling out more than $615,000 at Trump World Tower and Trump International Hotel.
Eric Trump, the former president’s son, has long insisted that foreign interests did not influence his father’s presidency and that any profit the company earned on the hotel stays was returned to the government through a voluntary annual payment to the Treasury Department.
On Thursday, he noted in an email that the Chinese bank mentioned in the report had signed a 20-year lease at Trump Tower in 2008, almost a decade before his father took office.
House Republicans also dismissed the revelations Thursday, arguing that there was nothing wrong with Trump receiving revenue from foreign governments while he was president but that Biden’s family’s business was corrupt.
The Constitution prohibits a president from accepting money, payments, or gifts “of any kind whatever” from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains “the consent of the Congress” to do so.