A yearlong investigation by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee has uncovered what they describe as a “stunning” web of at least $7 million in payments from foreign governments directly into then-President Donald Trump’s coffers.
The committee’s findings, outlined in a recently released staff report, are drawn from documents obtained by the panel before Republicans took control of the House of Representatives last year and subsequently closed the investigation into whether Mr. accepted payments from foreign governments in violation of the US. The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
The report says that during his term, Democrats on the committee discovered “millions of dollars in payments made by foreign governments and their agents directly to Trump-owned companies,” including the Washington DC hotel that Mr Trump is just steps away from. distance from the White House.
Payments also flowed from foreign governments to the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, his Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York, and Trump’s namesake skyscraper in Manhattan, Trump Tower.
The payments, the report says, totaled $7.8 million in just two of his four years in office, and came at the same time as foreign governments — including China, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and others — “set specific targets of foreign policy with Trump and sometimes even with President Trump himself, and because they called for specific actions by the United States to advance their own national policy objectives.”
In concrete terms, the report mentions payments directly into the coffers of the then president of, among others, the following foreign governments:
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$5.6 million from China to Trump Tower, Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC and Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas
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$615,422 from Saudi Arabia to Trump World Tower and Trump International Hotel in DC
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$465,744 from Qatar to Trump World Tower
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$303,372 from Kuwait to Trump World Tower and Trump International Hotel in DC
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$282,764 from India to Trump World Tower and Trump International Hotel in DC
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$248,962 from Malaysia to Trump International Hotel in DC
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$154,750 from Afghanistan to Trump International Hotel in DC
House Oversight Committee member Jamie Raskin said in a statement that the documents in question, which Democrats obtained from Trump’s former accounting firm Mazars USA, show what was most likely “only a small portion of the payments former President Trump received from foreign governments while in office, in violation of the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.”
He also noted that the panel found that the then-president had taken money from 19 foreign governments based on the two years of data the panel obtained before Republicans took control of the House.
“After promising ‘the greatest infomercial in political history,’ former President Donald Trump repeatedly and deliberately violated the U.S. Constitution by failing to divest his business empire and allow his companies to make millions of dollars in payments to accept from some of the most corrupt countries in the world. earth,” Mr. Raskin said.
“The governments that made these payments demanded specific foreign policy outcomes from President Trump and his administration. “Every dollar that former President Trump accepted violated the Constitution’s strict ban on payments from foreign governments, which the Founders enacted to prevent presidents from selling out American foreign policy to foreign leaders,” he added.
The Maryland Democrat also castigated his Republican counterparts on the panel, led by Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, who he said had “buried any further evidence of the Trump family’s staggering corruption” by ending the efforts to force Mazars to comply with a subpoena issued when Democrats controlled the chamber during Trump’s term.
“Despite these efforts, today’s report makes clear that former President Trump has lined his pockets with cash from foreign governments seeking policy advantages over the interests of the American people. By concealing evidence of Trump’s anger, House Republicans are shamefully condoning former President Trump’s conduct and keeping the door open for future presidents to exploit higher office,” he said.
The House Democrats’ report appears to be the final act in a long-running battle over Trump’s extensive business interests that began just days before he was set to take office in 2017, when the then-president-elect refused to relinquish his namesake company. real estate and brand empire that he had built up over decades.
Rather than blindly confide in his assets, Mr. Trump turned control over to his adult sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who argued that the Trump Organization would not enter into “new” foreign affairs deals during the time of their father in the White House. House.
When Democrats retook the House of Representatives midway through his term, they launched an investigation into whether Trump’s ownership of his businesses — particularly the hotel in Washington, D.C. — violated the provision of the U.S. Constitution that allows presidents or forbids their families to take anything of value from the factories. other governments, including foreign and state governments.
Mr. Raskin, the panel’s current member, told reporters on Thursday that the committee’s work was the culmination of a process that began under the late Maryland Representative Elijah Cummings, who was the oversight committee’s top Democrat when Trump was elected in 2016 elected.
“When Donald Trump was elected, Cummings immediately sensed that a problem would arise if a president brought more than 500 companies into office and refused to divest himself of any of those companies, or even would place in blind trust.” he said.
“That was shocking and ethically risky enough, but Cummings also noted the fact that Trump said he would not agree not to do business with foreign governments… clause eight, the foreign government emoluments clause,” he added to it.
The investigation that began under Cummings continued throughout Trump’s final two years in office, and when the panel tried to subpoena records from Trump’s accountants, he sued to block the subpoena. The resulting lawsuit eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled Trump vs. Mazars that the then-president’s private affairs could be subpoenaed by the House panel.
Mr. Raskin, the current Democrat on the committee, said Mr. Trump’s violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause were unprecedented in the nearly 250-year history of the American presidency, citing his predecessors’ efforts to scrupulously comply with the constitutional provision of the American presidency. problem.
“In the United States, we don’t have kings, princes or nobles here. Nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, be allowed to collect from any prince, king, or foreign government, any emolument, that is, any payment, office, or title whatsoever. It is a categorical ban on that,” he said.
“No president has ever come close to doing what Donald Trump did: receiving money from foreign princes, kings and governments.”