House Dem report: Trump businesses received $7.8M from foreign states, leaders during presidency

Former President Donald Trump’s businesses received at least $7.8 million from foreign governments during his time in office, according to a new report by House Democrats.

The findings come from a years-long investigation by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.

“By elevating his personal financial interests and the policy priorities of corrupt foreign powers over the American public interest, former President Trump violated both the clear commands of the Constitution and the careful precedent set and observed by every previous Commander-in-Chief,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the committee, said in the report.

Read the full report.

Democrats used records obtained from Trump’s longtime accounting firm, worked out as part of a lengthy court battle, plus publicly available information to track payments from at least 20 countries, according to the report. And in addition to the report,Democrats released hundreds of pages of documents detailing payments they found.

A bulk of those payments came from the Chinese government and state-owned business, the report said. But it cautioned that their figures were a “conservative” estimate and that their records were incomplete after Republicans dropped the investigation after taking over the majority last year, ending additional document production.

The Trump Organization said, in a statement responding to the report, that foreign profits during Trump’s presidency were donated to the Treasury Department, while also pointing out that one Chinese tenant in Trump Tower signed a 20-year lease in 2008, years before the Trump presidency. The statement also noted an inability to stop people from booking through third party platforms.

Asked about the pushback, Raskin countered that the “Constitution establishes a categorical and absolute prohibition against the receipt of foreign government and royal money to the president.”

“The Constitution doesn’t say the president is not allowed to keep profits from foreign governments. It says … the president is not allowed to take any payments at all from foreign governments,” he added.

The release of the report comes as Republicans are nearing a decision point in their impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, which has focused on the business deals of his family members. Republicans voted to formalize that inquiry last month, even as several said they hadn’t yet seen a direct link between actions taken by the president and the financial arrangements.

Both The Trump Organization and House Republicans accused Democrats of using the report to try to take the focus off Hunter Biden, who is also the subject of a federal investigation.

“It’s beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former President Trump,” Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) in response to the report.

Democrats argued that their report was separate and not driven by the GOP impeachment effort, noting it stems back several years. But Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) tied the report to the 2024 election, saying voters have a choice of a “decent man who has served his country well and is clearly under a sham impeachment inquiry that has zero evidence of credibility or between a …Trump crime family.”

Democrats and some ethics officials have argued for years that Trump violated the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which forbids a president from profiting from foreign governments, after he didn’t divest himself from his real estate empire and other business holdings. And while Trump faced lawsuits over the issue, the Supreme Courtdeclared two of the lawsuits moot shortly after he left office.

Democrats are expected to release a separate report on potential domestic spending violations, noting that documents they received raised “significant potential conflicts of interest and potential violations of the Constitution’s Domestic Emoluments Clause.”

And they are vowing to propose legislation to make reforms, though those bills could be stuck in limbo given Republicans’ narrow majority in the House. That legislative package is expected to include, among provisions, a requirement that the president and other senior executive officials disclose to Congress any foreign emoluments they received within days and set up a procedure to seek congressional authorization for receiving and keeping them.

“We will develop a package of proposed legislative reforms to ensure that all occupants of the Oval Office abide by the Constitution’s unequivocal language commanding loyalty to the interests of the American people,” Raskin wrote.