Trump Given At Least $7.8 Million From Foreign Governments During His Presidency, Mostly From China

According to House Democrats, former President Donald Trump received at least $7.8 million from foreign governments during two out of his four years in the White House.

The revelation came in a report released by the House Oversight Committee’s Democratic members on Thursday.

According to the report, 20 foreign governments in countries like Saudi Arabia and Kuwait helped finance Trump’s businesses within two years that the committee was able to look over.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, mentioned in the report’s foreword that these payments originated from some rival governments. It was confirmed in the report that most of the money came from China, which paid $5.5 million to properties owned by Trump.

“This is a limited window on a far-broader universe of foreign government spending that took place,” Raskin told the reporters on Capitol Hill.

For the most part, the countries used their money for stays at Trump-owned apartments and hotels.

It was claimed within the report that these payments made Trump richer as he was making key foreign policy decisions related to their policy agendas with extensive outcomes for the U.S.

Raskin declared that the information within the report displays Trump’s violation of the Constitution’s foreign “emoluments clause,” which forbids the president from taking money payments or gifts of any sort from foreign governments and monarchs, that is, unless Congress gives him consent.

“Yet Donald Trump, while holding the office of president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never once went to Congress to seek its consent,” Raskin stated.

The details mentioned in the report come from Mazars, Trump’s former accounting firm. Democrats spent many years litigating to acquire these documents.

Trump fought against the subpoena in court but eventually reached an agreement with Mazars and the committee back in September 2022. However, Democrats claimed that Republicans then succeeded in getting a court to stop the agreement from being enforced in July 2023.

“Despite these obstacles, Committee Democrats succeeded in obtaining a subset of documents that shine a light on the finances of at least some of the former president’s businesses, despite being incomplete and lacking in significant respects because of the Chairman’s actions and significant gaps in the records possessed by Mazars,” the report declared.

Republicans on the committee, meanwhile, have been busy subpoening Hunter Biden, the son of President Joe Biden.

Hunter stated that he wanted to testify before a Republican-led House Oversight Committee on December 13 after he was subpoenaed early in November to appear for a closed-door interview, which would play a part in Republican’s impeachment investigation into his father.

Hunter’s lawyer, Abbe Lowell, and the committee’s GOP chair, Rep. James Comer (R-Tennessee), argued about whose family activities deserve more focus, Biden’s or Trump’s.

Trump is facing a $370 million business fraud trial in New York for cooked financials. His son, Eric Trump, contradicted his deposition while testifying on the witness stand.