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This story deserves to be repeated and repeated, until everyone gets it.
Donald Trump took millions from foreign interests while in Office.
Trump took millions from foreign interests while his Administration, and even he himself, promoted their objectives for political favoritism from the US Government.
The ‘wink and a nod’ from Team Trump, toward the heinous acts of MBS spring to mind. That occurred in the midst of the Million Dollar payola days.
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Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) went after former President Trump on Friday, demanding in a letter that he return about $7.8 million Trump’s companies received from foreign governments while he was in office.
House Oversight and Accountability Committee Democrats first made the allegation in a report last week, claiming Trump’s companies accepted money from foreign entities in 20 countries and alleging the payments violate the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
“Your acceptance of foreign emoluments while in office was a stunning violation of the U.S. Constitution — and a profound betrayal of the interests of the United States and the trust of the American people,” Raskin wrote.
[...]
theHill.com — Jan 12, 2024
White House for Sale:
How Princes, Prime Ministers, and Premiers
Paid Off President Trump
Staff Report
Committee on Oversight and Accountability
Democratic Staff
Rep. Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member
U.S. House of Representatives
January 4, 2024
https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/
[...]
Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution forbids the President to accept money payments or gifts “of any kind whatever” from foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains “the Consent of the Congress” to do so. 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. This report sets forth the records showing foreign government money—and all the spoils from royals we can find—pouring into hotels and buildings that the President continued to own during his presidency, all in direct violation of the Constitutional prohibition.
[...]
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. This report presents the analysis of these documents prepared by the Committee’s Democratic staff. Critically, even this subset of documents reveals a stunning web of millions of dollars in payments made by foreign governments and their agents directly to Trump-owned businesses while President Trump was in the White House. 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.
Based on the subset of documents the Committee received from Mazars, this report
concludes:
• Through entities he owned and controlled, President Trump accepted, at a minimum, millions of dollars in foreign emoluments in violation of the United States Constitution. [...]
• President Trump’s businesses received, at a minimum, $7.8 million in foreign payments from at least 20 countries during his presidency. [...]
• President Trump never sought or received Congress’s approval to keep these foreign payments, as the Constitution requires. [...]
• The foreign nations making payments to President Trump spanned the globe and included several of the most corrupt and authoritarian governments on Earth. They ranged from the People’s Republic of China to Saudi Arabia to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Malaysia to Albania to Kosovo. These countries spent—often lavishly—on apartments and hotel stays at Donald Trump’s properties—personally enriching President Trump while he made foreign policy decisions connected to their policy agendas with far-reaching ramifications for the United States.
• Information available to the Committee shows that among countries patronizing Trump properties, China made the largest total payment to President Trump’s private business interests. [...]
[...]
Astonishingly, soon after becoming Chairman, Representative Comer claimed: “I honestly didn’t even know who or what Mazars was.” For years, President Trump aggressively litigated the case to thwart Mazars’s compliance with the Committee, but Chairman Comer has blamed Democrats for “‘investigating’ Trump for six years.” Instead of honoring the court-approved settlement, Chairman Comer made clear what he planned to do: “I know exactly what I’m investigating: money the Bidens received from China.”[19] As promised, Chairman Comer halted any further document productions relating to President Trump’s receipt of foreign payments—from China or any other country—and launched an investigation of President Joseph Biden’s son, which to date has produced no evidence of any constitutional or criminal wrongdoing by President Biden.
oversightdemocrats.house.gov
Nice, that the current Oversight Chair Comer has his priorities — and is sticking to them. He’s got his marching orders to hold a faux impeachment investigation of Joe Biden, and that’s that.
Never mind that those orders come direct from the career Conman — who’s never met a Law, that he wouldn’t break.
The Trump “terminating of the Constitution” started years ago — who knew?
There are many valid reasons “foreign emoluments were forbidden” by the Framers. And Donald Trump never gave two wits about about those reasons. Afterall, he considers himself to be “Above the Law” … as we are all learning more and more with each new revealing day.
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“Saudi Arabia — and I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me,” Trump said at a 2015 rally in Alabama. ”They spend $40 million, $50 million. Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much.”
www.dailykos.com