Report Finds Trump Businesses Received $7.8 Million From Foreign Governments During Trump Presidency
The report from the Democratic minority staff comes after a five-year investigation into Trump’s alleged violations of the foreign emoluments clause
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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On Jan. 4, the minority staff on the House Oversight Committee released a report detailing their findings that businesses owned by former President Trump received millions of dollars from at least 20 foreign governments while Trump was president. The report argues that these transactions violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause that states that federal officeholders shall not “without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
The report focused on three Trump properties: the Trump hotels in Washington, D.C. and Las Vegas, and the Trump World Tower in New York City. Using records subpoenaed from the former president’s accounting firm, Mazars, the minority staff alleges that the Chinese government spent over five million dollars at the three Trump businesses between 2017 and 2020, the most of any country recorded. It alleges that “these payments were made while these governments were promoting specific foreign policy goals with the Trump Administration and even, at times, with President Trump himself.”
The report ends with recommendations on how Congress could increase its oversight powers on “the acceptance of foreign government emoluments by the president and other federal officials.”
Read the report here or below.
