A new report from the House Committee on Oversight and Reform reveals that former President Donald Trump’s Washington, DC hotel only brought in about $70 million, even though he claimed it brought in $150 million in income while he was in office. Reuters reports that the twice-impeached one-term president’s businesses tried to hide millions of dollars in payments from foreign governments that flowed through his unprofitable hotel in downtown Washington. Trump has a history of cooking the books, so this isn’t too surprising. What is surprising is that he still has support from his base.
“By filing these misleading public disclosures, President Trump grossly exaggerated the financial health of the Trump Hotel,” the committee said.
“The committee found that the hotel received over $3.7 million in payments from foreign governments — roughly equal to more than 7,400 nights at the hotel, posing a potential conflict of interest,” Reuters reports. “Provisions in the U.S. Constitution prohibit the president from obtaining payments, or “emoluments,” from foreign governments.”
“The hotel gave a portion of that money to the U.S. government but failed to provide details of those payments to the General Services Administration (GSA), the agency that manages federal properties, the Democratic-controlled committee said,” the report continues. “Trump’s lawyers have argued in court cases that his ownership of the hotel did not violate these constitutional provisions.”
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
“Congressional Democrats say the GSA stonewalled their investigation into Trump’s businesses while he was in office, but in July 2021 finally produced some of the documents they had been seeking,” the outlet reports.
Trump appears to have been concealing his debts.
“When Trump first applied to lease the Old Post Office Building in 2011 for his hotel, he also provided the federal government with information that the committee said: “appeared to conceal certain debts.” Records show Trump specifically didn’t show outstanding balances for properties he owned in other major cities like New York, Chicago, and Las Vegas, the panel said,” NBC News reports.
The committee said that Trump also received “a significant financial benefit” while he was in office from Deutsche Bank that allowed him to postpone making payments on the $170 million loan for the hotel. “Mr. Trump did not publicly disclose this significant benefit from a foreign bank while he was president,” the committee said.
Trump is good at getting loans to cover for his failures.
After Trump’s DC hotel suffered a net loss of more than $70 million while he was president, he had to be loaned more than $27 million from one of Trump’s holding companies, DJT Holdings LLC, from 2017 to 2020, according to hotel financial statements the committee obtained, CNN reports. More than $24 million of that was not repaid and was instead converted to capital contributions, the committee said.
Trump, and stay with me here for a minute, might have been clinging to power to avoid being exposed. The former president still hasn’t conceded the race he lost over eleven months ago to Joe Biden in the electoral and popular vote, and we may have just found out why. He is no longer protected by the presidency. He must have a lot more he’s hiding. How much do his adult children know about this?
Featured image via Political Tribune gallery
