Trump Used His Presidency To Make Himself Richer

 I think most people already suspected this, but now a congressional report makes it official. Donald Trump accepted nearly $8 million from foreign countries during the first two years of his presidency (Republicans blocked the examination of the final two years of his presidency). He used the presidency to make himself richer -- which is a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Here's how Dan Rather puts it:

According to a report released by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, Donald Trump’s businesses allegedly received millions of dollars from 20 foreign governments, including “some of the world’s most unsavory regimes,” while the former president was in office. The report, “White House For Sale: How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers Paid Off President Trump,” results from a years-long investigation. 

The Emoluments Clause in the Constitution disallows federal officials, including the president, from accepting money, payment or gifts “of any kind whatever” from foreign governments unless permission is granted from Congress. Trump never sought such permission.

Congressional investigators found Trump and his family received “at least” $7.8 million, much of the money from China but also from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Malaysia and others. The payments were made to Trump International Hotel, Washington, D.C.; Trump International Hotel, Las Vegas; Trump Tower, Fifth Avenue, New York; and Trump World Tower, New York.

“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, and as they were requesting specific actions from the United States to advance their own national policy objectives.” 

— Congressional Report, “White House For Sale”

Despite requests from Democrats and Republicans after his 2016 win, Trump refused to divest his financial holdings and place his businesses in blind trusts, as every president since the 1970s had done.

 

House Democrats think this may be the proverbial tip of the iceberg, because when they lost their majority in 2022, Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, was released from having to provide any documents related to the foreign gifts. Democrats were able to see only a small portion of receipts from Trump’s businesses. Republicans, meanwhile, have focused on similar allegations about President Biden and his son, Hunter. So far, no wrongdoing has been proven there.

According to Eric Trump, son of the former president, profits earned by the Trump hotels were given to the Treasury Department voluntarily. We don’t know if the money was given to the federal government, but this admission confirms that profits were in fact earned from foreign entities. The whole thing merits more investigation.

It is so easy to throw this kind of behavior on the scrapheap of outrageous — sometimes illegal — doings by the former president, to shake your head and shrug your shoulders. But there is a compelling reason to keep calling out all the illegal and immoral exploits of Trump. If no one does, he gets away with it. 

Read the full report here.

Trump Abandons The Kurds For Personal Financial Gain

Our most faithful and effective allies in the fight against ISIS in Syria has been the Kurdish fighters. (known as the Syrian Democratic Forces). We owe them a huge debt of gratitude, but Donald Trump has decided to throw them under the bus instead. He has announced that he is pulling U.S. troops back from the part of Syria near the Turkish border, and has given Turkish strongman Recep Erdogan his blessing to move into that part of Syria.

This area is the homeland of the Kurds, who have wanted to create their own country there (and in a small part of Turkey bordering Syria). It looks like, thanks to Trump, that Kurdish dream of freedom and their own country will now die. The Turkish president regards the Kurdish fighters as terrorist, and undoubtably will be attacking them.

Why is Trump doing this? Is it because he has a hotel (and other investments) in Istanbul? Is Trump abandoning the Kurds to an awful fate so he can make more money in Turkey? What financial inducements has Erdogan promised Trump? It looks like our foreign policy is being influenced by Trump's own financial gain. This is why U.S. presidents should divest themselves of their businesses before taking office (which other presidents have done, but which Trump refused to do).

It was to prevent actions like this that our Founding Fathers put an Emoluments Clause in our Constitution -- to prevent foreign policy from being dictated by a president's personal financial gain. Trump has repeatedly violated that clause of the Constitution. It is just one more reason why he must be IMPEACHED!

Trump Sets Next G7 Meeting As A Money-Maker For Himself

Past presidents have divested themselves of their business ventures to prevent a violation of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. They didn't want even the perception that they might be using their elected office for their own monetary gain.

Donald Trump is different. He has refused to divest himself of his business interests. Even worse, he has made sure his businesses make money off the U.S. government (by taking his vacations and time off at facilities he owns, with the government picking up the tab for him and his family, his aides, and his security).

That's not all. Foreign governments make sure to stay at Trump facilities to incur his favor -- especially his expensive Washington hotel.

Now he has gone a step further. He has set the G7 meeting next year at the Trump Doral golf resort (which he owns). All participants, their aides, and their security details will have to pay Trump to stay at the facility he owns.

He claims he doesn't want to make money off the meeting, and won't make any. He's lying! Of course, he will make money from the meeting. He's the owner, and all profits go to him.

Here's how Bernard Condon and Adriana Gomez Licon report Trump's move for the Associated Press:

President Donald Trump was in full sales mode Monday, doing everything but pass out brochures as he touted the features that would make the Doral golf resort the ideal place for the next G-7 Summit — close to the airport, plenty of hotel rooms, separate buildings for every delegation, even top facilities for the media.

There’s just one detail he left out: He owns the place.

Government ethics watchdogs have long railed against the perils of Trump earning money off the presidency and hosting foreign leaders at his properties. But they say Trump’s proposal to bring world leaders to his Miami-area resort takes the conflict of interest to a whole new level because, unlike stays at his Washington, they would have no choice but to spend money at his property.

“It’s ethics violation squared,” said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law in St. Louis.

Added Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, “This is him making it perfectly mandatory that they stay at his resort.”

Trump’s proposal at the current G-7 Summit in Biarritz, France, portrayed the Doral resort in the most glowing terms, even though he said later he was more interested in logistics for the meeting than making money.

“We have a series of magnificent buildings ... very luxurious rooms,” Trump told reporters. “We have incredible conference rooms, incredible restaurants, it’s like — it’s like such a natural.”

Trump’s pitch comes as several lawsuits accusing the president of violating the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause, which bans gifts from foreign governments, wind their way through the courts.

It also comes as Doral, by far the biggest revenue generator among the Trump Organization’s 17 golf properties, appears to have taken a hit from Trump’s move into politics.

The trouble began during soon after Trump announced he was running for the presidency in 2015 with a speech that called Mexican immigrants crossing the border illegally rapists and murders. Businesses started cutting ties to the president. The PGA and NASCAR moved events that used to be booked at Doral elsewhere.

Eric Trump, who is overseeing the business with his older brother, Don Jr., told The Associated Press last year that “the Doral is on fire.” But a financial disclosure report filed with the federal government this year showed revenue at the club has barely been growing — up just $1 million to $76 million.

Trump’s financial disclosure also shows he owes a lot of money to Deutsche Bank for the property, which helped him buy it in 2012. As of the end of last year, Trump had two mortgages on the resort, one for more than $50 million, the other for as much as $25 million. . . .

At Monday’s news conference, Trump spoke as if the idea of making money off the summit never entered his mind. In fact, he said, other people were pushing Doral as a venue — not just him. He said the Secret Service and the military have been visiting various sites and appear to have formed a bit of consensus already.

“They went to places all over the country and they came back and they said, ‘This is where we’d like to be,’” Trump said. “It’s not about me. It’s about getting the right location.”

He then added: “I’m not going to make any money. I don’t want to make money. I don’t care about making money.”

Is Trump Already Committing An Impeachable Offense ?

From the United States Constitution (Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8):

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, 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.

Definition of emolument -- a salary, fee, or profit from employment or office.

This is pretty clear. No president (or other government official) can use his office to make himself richer (especially with business or gifts from a foreign state). And once Trump is sworn into office, it would be an impeachable offense.

Trump has refused to divest himself of his business interests. Instead, he has just said that he would turn over the day-to-day operations of his business empire to his children. That is not sufficient to satisfy the "Emoluments Clause", because Trump would still be profiting from his businesses, and those businesses could be used by foreign governments to try and gain influence with the president by paying into them. In fact, this seems to be already happening.

The following article at Think Progress is by Judd Legum and Kira Lerner:

The Embassy of Kuwait allegedly cancelled a contract with a Washington, D.C. hotel days after the presidential election, citing political pressure to hold its National Day celebration at the Trump International Hotel instead.

A source tells ThinkProgress that the Kuwaiti embassy, which has regularly held the event at the Four Seasons in Georgetown, abruptly canceled its reservation after members of the Trump Organization pressured the ambassador to hold the event at the hotel owned by the president-elect. The source, who has direct knowledge of the arrangements between the hotels and the embassy, spoke to ThinkProgress on the condition of anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly. ThinkProgress was also able to review documentary evidence confirming the source’s account.

In the early fall, the Kuwaiti Embassy signed a contract with the Four Seasons. But after the election, members of the Trump Organization contacted the Ambassador of Kuwait, Salem Al-Sabah, and encouraged him to move his event to Trump’s D.C. hotel, the source said.

Kuwait has now signed a contract with the Trump International Hotel, the source said, adding that a representative with the embassy described the decision as political. Invitations to the event are typically sent out in January.

Abdulaziz Alqadfan, First Secretary of the Embassy of Kuwait, told ThinkProgress last week that he couldn’t “confirm or deny” that the National Day event would be held at the Trump Hotel. Reached again Monday afternoon, Alqadfan did not offer any comment. An email sent directly to Ambassador Al-Sabah was not immediately returned.

Mallory Harney, a sales and marketing official with the Trump hotel, declined to comment.

The apparent move by the Kuwaiti Embassy appears to be an effort to gain favor with president-elect through his business entanglements, and it appears to show Trump’s company leveraging his position as president-elect to extract payments from a foreign government. The latter, according to top legal experts, would be unconstitutional and could ultimately constitute an impeachable offense.

The Trump Organization’s pressure campaign has not been limited to Kuwait. The country was targeted as part of a larger effort by the Trump Organization to lure lucrative diplomats to the Trump International Hotel.

It’s working.

Kuwait cancelled with the Four Seasons a few days after the Trump International Hotel held an event for diplomats, reported the Washington Post, encouraging them to patronize the hotel.

At the event, conversation among diplomats reportedly centered around “how are we going to build ties with the new administration,” according to the Post. One Middle Eastern diplomat told the Post that he or she expects foreign entities to begin holding events and booking stays at the hotel. “Believe me, all the delegations will go there,” the diplomat said.

Less than two weeks after that event, Politico reported that Bahrain, another Middle Eastern monarchy, would host its National Day reception at the Trump hotel on December 7.

Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA) harshly criticized the Bahrain event, writing in a letter to Trump that he should “reject all business income from the Bahraini monarchy and all other foreign governments.” McGovern wrote that Trump’s “private commercial dealings with a repressive governments” endanger the fundamental principle that the president will “act solely in our country’s interests.”

The Republic of Azerbaijan also recently co-hosted a Hanukkah party at the Trump hotel, despite the anti-Semitic undertones of the Trump campaign. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, blasted the decision as “tone deaf at best, naked sycophancy at worst.”

Smaller countries like Kuwait, Bahrain, and Azerbaijan may perceive patronizing the Trump Hotel as an easy way to gain access and favor with the incoming Trump administration.

To drive the effort to draw in business from embassies, the Trump Hotel poached a manager from the Four Seasons to be the “director of diplomatic sales.”

“The temptation and the inclination will certainly be there. Some might think it’s the right way to engage, to be able to tell the next president, ‘Oh, I stayed at your hotel,” a former ambassador to Mexico told the Washington Post.

Trump contributed to the impression that his businesses and administration are intertwined by naming three of his children to his transition team, while also saying that the children will manage his companies.

Trump planned to explain in a press conference this month how his businesses would operate after he assumes office, but he has postponed the announcement indefinitely.

Ivanka, Eric, and Donald Jr., meanwhile, have all been featured in public transition events. The transition team handed out a photo of Ivanka meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and a summit with a group of top American tech leaders held last week featured all three Trump children perched at the head of the table.

In several cases during the transition, foreign leaders have been able to get in touch with President-elect Trump through his business contacts.

Donald Trump and the businesses he owns and controls do not seem concerned about mixing his business and official activities. “The law is totally on my side, meaning, the president can’t have a conflict of interest,” Trump told the New York Times.

Although the president is exempt from some conflict-of-interest laws, the Congressional Research Service recently identified nine federal conflict of interest and ethics provisions that could apply to the president.

One looms large over the apparent hotel deal with the Kuwaitis: The Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits the president from receiving money from a foreign government or head of state.

According to Democratic and Republican legal experts, such a payment is not only unconstitutional, it’s an impeachable offense.

(The cartoon image above is by Bryant Arnold at cartoonaday.com.)