Top Democrat Jamie Raskin sent a letter Friday demanding that Donald Trump repay the nearly $8 million he earned from foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia, during his presidency.
Democrats on the committee released a report last week detailing the $7.8 million his properties and businesses received from 20 foreign governments while he was in the White House.
Raskin called it a “stunning violation” of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, which prohibits sitting presidents from taking money from foreign states while in office.
“I also demand that you provide Congress with a full accounting of the money,” the Maryland Democrat wrote, as his party has not been able to subpoena Trump’s financial documents since Republicans came to power.
“The Constitution makes it clear that as president, ‘without the consent of Congress,’ you were prohibited from ‘accepting any gift, emolument, office, or title, of whatever nature whatsoever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.’ , Raskin said. said in the letter. “You have not sought or obtained congressional authorization to retain any of the at least $7.8 million in foreign emoluments you collected as president. As such, you have violated the Constitution you swore to “preserve, protect and defend.”
Democrat Jamie Raskin sent a letter Friday demanding that Donald Trump repay the nearly $8 million he earned from foreign governments, including China and Saudi Arabia, while he was president.
According to a report from House Democrats, foreign governments spent $7.8 million on Trump companies during his four-year term
The money came through Trump Organization real estate investments, even at a time when Trump was withdrawing from management of his financial empire, which is now the subject of a civil fraud case in New York.
Trump defended the business deals during a Fox News town hall on Wednesday when asked whether he would divest his company if he were re-elected president.
“If I have a hotel and someone comes from China, that’s a small amount,” Trump said. ‘That’s what I did services for. People stayed in these huge hotels, these beautiful hotels, and they stayed there and paid. I’m not going to get $8 million if I don’t do anything.”
Trump and members of his family called the report a “joke” and said Trump donated all the profits he made from foreign governments during his presidency to the Treasury.
Raskin said the emoluments clause not only prohibits profits, but also prohibits taking money from a foreign government while in office.
“As the report explains, it is difficult to imagine a more ridiculous and half-hearted approach to the Constitution’s categorical ban than the Trump Organization’s ‘voluntary donation’ policy, which was grossly substandard in several other respects,” Raskin wrote. “Your acceptance of foreign emoluments while in office was a stunning violation of the United States Constitution – and a profound betrayal of the interests of the United States and the trust of the American people. ‘
The companies that did business with Trump’s company even included a subsidiary of the defunct Chinese company CEFC, a conglomerate that also did deals with Hunter Biden, who was at the center of the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden.
Properties where Democratic staff and members tracked foreign funds included Trump’s former hotel in Washington, D.C., which was the subject of intense investigation and lawsuits during Trump’s term in office. During the Trump administration, the hotel was bustling.
The Trump Organization sold the property’s lease in 2022 for an estimated profit of $100 million. It is now a Waldorf Astoria hotel.
China and Saudi Arabia top the list
Much of the cost came from Trump’s former hotel in DC
Of the total of $7.8 million, $5.6 million came from China, according to the report.
A Trump Organization source disagreed with the committee’s focus on the state-owned Industrial Commercial Bank of China, ICBC, which has a long-term $2 million per year lease in Trump Tower.
A Trump Organization source told DailyMail.com that ICBC was a tenant that signed a 20-year office lease for Trump Tower in 2008, “nearly a decade before President Trump took office.” That story is crazy, especially because no president in the history of the United States has been tougher on China than Donald Trump,” the source said.
The company source then argued that there is a “big difference between someone renting commercial office space to a foreign company a decade ago (in 2008 to be exact), versus the vice president’s son and relatives who are taking money out of China, Ukraine and Romania achieves. and others, while providing no visible or tangible goods and services. It would be unfair not to make a clear distinction between the two.’
Saudi Arabia and Qatar were also among the countries spending millions at 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.
Democrats also investigated the Trump Tower property where Trump has a penthouse apartment
The report examined foreign spending at Trump’s former hotel in DC
Researchers looked at the expenditure of the Saudi government, but also that of China
The transactions were detailed in a 156-page report called “White House For Sale” by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
Other foreign governments, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia, also conducted business through four Trump entities, according to the report. The report says the discovered foreign payments are “likely only a fraction of the total amount of foreign payments he received during his presidency.”
After promising ‘the greatest infomercial in political history,’ former President Donald Trump repeatedly and willfully 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,” the report said.
“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 companies while President Trump was in the White House,” the House Oversight wrote Democrats.
“By pocketing payments from foreign states, President Trump repeatedly placed his personal financial interests and the interests of foreign wealth and power ahead of the public interest, resulting in precisely the divided loyalties between foreign powers and the American people that Framers tried to avoid’ They wrote.
Expenses highlighted in the report include:
Researchers from the committee based their findings on financial information from accounting firm Mazars, which no longer does business with the company. The returns were the subject of lawsuits that spanned Trump’s entire term and were ultimately won by Congress.
The Emoluments Clause states: ‘No title of nobility shall be conferred by the United States: and no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of Congress, accept any Gift, Emolument, Office or Office . Title, of any kind, of any king, prince, or foreign state.”
As president, Trump retained ownership of his company but transferred control to his sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., as well as former executive Allen Weisselberg.
The Trump Organization announced in 2017 that it would donate ‘profits’ from patronage of foreign governments. But the commission said the policy was “clearly inconsistent with the Constitution” and that both profiting and receiving revenue were prohibited.