Documents released by House Democrats on January 4, 2024, and reported by The New York Times last week “revealed” that during his first two years as president, Donald Trump “companies received at least 7.8 million from 20 foreign governments» in overseas transactions, most of them coming from China.
These reports were not only old news, but they barely scratched the surface of what we already knew about Trump’s monetization of the White House to benefit the Trump Organization as well as members of his family, thanks at least in part to the investigative work of the Times, the Washington Post, the nonprofit group CREW on government accountability, and the authors of The crooks club.
Regardless, the amount shown represents, as the saying goes, just the tip of the corrupt iceberg of Trump’s corruption operation during his one term in office. In other words, these particular financial violations of Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the National Emoluments Clause by Trump and his many companies were not really essential to the overall syndication of revenue generation by the company. The real “cash cow” was primarily pay-to-play and these funds came from overlapping domestic and international sources.
Although Trump campaigned in 2016 to end the inside culture of lobbying and favor-seeking in Washington, he actually “reinvented” it, as the Times reported shortly after he left office: “transforming its own hotels and resorts into the Beltway’s new back rooms, where the mix of public and private companies and particular interests reign. The line between the Trump Organization and the Trump administration was so thin that it remains unclear where the former president’s public responsibilities ended and his private financial interests began.
“Unlike any other modern president, Trump has forced the American people to question whether the decisions and policies his administration is implementing are because they are the best policies for the nation or because they benefit him personally. — either by directly helping his businesses or spending money there by spending money on special interests,” the Times wrote.
What is clear is that the Corruptor-in-Chief, in terms of personal benefits, managed to monetize or turn the position of President into one of his most successful scams for himself and the members of his family, including his son-in-law Jared. Kushner who received more more than $2 billion to his young company from a fund led by the Saudi crown prince.
After his election to the White House, Trump pledged to recuse himself from running the Trump Organization’s operations, but he did not do so. In The Swamp That Trump Built, the New York Times found that more than 200 corporations, special interest groups and foreign governments have profited from their patronage and spending on his various properties.
Among Trump’s corporate perks was granting 67 foreign trademarks to his companies, including 46 from China. With political interests at stake, sixty of these professional clients found their edge by contributing nearly $12 million to the Trump family businesses during the first half of his presidency.
The diversity of customers who showed up at the Trump Bazaar spanned the global spectrum and competing special interests clashed. Regardless, Trump and the family estates behaved like bandits in handing out funds, laws and land. Among those winners and losers were, according to the Times, “foreign politicians and Florida sugar barons, a Chinese billionaire and a Serbian prince, clean energy enthusiasts and their adversaries in the oil industry, avowed activists of small government and entrepreneurs looking for billions.” federal budgets that continue to grow.
As of September 2020, the missing firewall between his companies and the presidency had revealed 3,403 conflicts of interest, or about two conflicts per day. These disputes involved foreign government officials conducting business or staying at Trump properties, as well as other taxpayer and campaign spending at Trump businesses. They also involved Trump and his family members or other politicians promoting a range of scams or monetized rackets to raise capital.
After 1,341 days in office: 88 political events took place at Trump properties, including 13 foreign government events; 130 events for special interest groups; 145 foreign officials and 141 members of Congress visited a Trump business 344 times. Most of these visits (284) took place at the Trump Hotel in Washington.
Topping the pay-to-play list was Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham with 27 visits, followed by Sen. Rand Paul (18) and Reps. Matt Gaetz (17), Kevin McCarthy (17), Jim Jordan (13), and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows (13).
Not insignificantly, the top 10 political committees are also spending money on Trump properties:
- Trump victory, $2,282,630
- Republican National Committee, $2,425,472
- Donald J. Trump for president, $2,307,127
- America First, $600,322
- Republican Governors Association, $412,721
- Great America Committee, $237,967
- Protect the house, $232,837
- Senate Leadership Fund, $94,626
- Association of Republican Attorneys General, $85,205
- National Republican Congressional Committee, $81,367
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During this period, Trump made 503 visits to his businesses, primarily to his golf courses (303), costing American taxpayers at least $1 million spent at these properties as well as more than $100 million to transport him to his properties. Besides Trump, some 334 administration officials have visited his properties, a total of 885 times.
First family members and senior advisors Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump visited Trump properties, respectively. »more than any other executive branch official with 39 and 36 visits.” This was followed by Vice President Pence with 33 visits, former advisor to the President Kellyanne Conway with 27 visits, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin with 23. Other visitors worthy of “dishonorable” mention were Wilbur Ross (19 ), Dan Scavino. (19 years old), Mick Mulvaney (18 years old), Richard Grenell (17 years old) and Sarah Huckabee Sanders (17 years old).
A total of 145 foreign officials from 75 governments visited Trump properties, with Turkish officials leading the pack. At Trump’s famous “Winter White House” at Mar-a-Lago, the former president hosted Chinese President Xi Jingping, then Japanese. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and finally former Brazilian president and failed insurrectionist Jair Bolsonaro. Xi’s visit was the most successful promotional event in Mar-a-Lago history and an unprecedented money generator for Trump.
Finally, in his hostile and corrupt way, Trump had transformed his transfer power to another source of income to make money from the presidency, with opening offers for a pardon or clemency starting at $50,000 with no guarantee of success. It was more recently learned that according to court documents filed in a civil complaint in May 2023, a former aide to Trump’s former lawyer Rudolph Giuliani claims that Rudy told her in 2019 that he and the president were “offering to sell presidential pardons for $2 million each“, and that they shared the money. Imagine what a second Trump term could sell.
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