The top Democrat on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee has called on the Trump Organization to report its We are requesting full submission of business records.
The letter from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) follows a committee report that concluded that Trump earned nearly $8 million from foreign governments while in office. .
Trump did not disclose these benefits to Congress, which Raskin said violated the Constitution's Emoluments Clause. The article prohibits leaders from accepting anything of value from foreign governments without approval from lawmakers.
Mr. Raskin scrutinized a letter from the Trump Organization after it denied its request for return of profits earlier this year, saying the written rejection from the Trump team “confirmed that Trump had not made any changes during his time in office without the consent of Congress. He admitted that he collected at least $7.8 million from the Trump Organization.” At least 20 foreign governments, the People's Republic of China and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, are his major backers. ”
Democrats acknowledged limitations in the report released earlier this month. They pointed to gaps in the information they received compared to Trump's business empire, as well as the fact that accounting firm Mazars had stopped producing the records, which they won after a legal battle, and from Trump's lawyers. It cited the notice it received mentioning conversations with the committee's Republican leadership.
But the bulk of the documented foreign funding (about $5.6 million) came from China, which, like other countries, owns three properties: Trump Hotels in Washington and Las Vegas, and Trump Tower in New York. I used it regularly.
This includes $5.4 million spent over about three years by the state-owned Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), which secured space in Trump Tower.
The Trump Organization said in a letter last week that many of the leases that contributed millions of dollars to that figure were signed before Trump was elected, and that Trump donated the profits, along with the president's salary, to the Treasury Department. He pointed out that he did.
For Mr. Raskin, it primarily served as a confirmation of the committee's efforts.
“You don’t know about the millions of dollars that foreign governments spent on Trump-owned properties, the identity of the corrupt and authoritarian governments that spent those amounts, or the myriad policy favors and changes those governments were trying to get from Trump. , clearly does not object to the administration's, and in many cases, President Trump's benefits at a time when it was lining his own pockets,” Raskin wrote in a letter obtained by The Hill.
“Former presidents have never come to Congress to identify foreign government payments they wish to accept or to seek Congressional consent to retain them, as required by the Foreign Emoluments Clause. You don't dispute that it didn't happen.”
Trump's team said that the “vast majority” of foreign government funding received during Trump's tenure came from leases, such as those secured by ICBC, and that more than 100% of the “estimated profits” from service facilities were generated. I wrote that I did.
But Raskin said he based his profit estimates solely on profits from Trump's hotels and towers, excluding income that may have come in from about 500 different Trump-related companies. .
“[Trump] One thing the Constitution clearly prohibits is accepting payments from foreign governments without Congressional approval. In any case, what “the majority” actually means is not quantified. We would like to conduct an independent audit to determine whether this statement is true,” Raskin wrote.
The committee's previous investigation found that Trump donated about $450,000 in profits from his businesses to the Treasury during his four years in office, a figure that Democrats say Trump This represents a significant difference from the roughly $8 million profit he found when he reviewed some of his businesses. record.
Mr. Raskin also took sharply at recent claims made by Mr. Trump's lawyers in Mr. Trump's election interference lawsuit that the trial should be delayed until 2026 because of the amount of evidence that must be reviewed in the case. Even more than the Washington Monument, which suggested that the lawsuits could become even more expensive if the claims were made and accumulated.
Mr. Raskin suggested that the true extent of Mr. Trump's overseas interests could be similarly large.
“Perhaps if you stacked up all the foreign money that former President Trump received during his time in office, it would be as tall as the Washington Monument and you could call it the 'Washington Monument.'” he wrote.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump Organization and Trump campaign for comment.
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