Jamie Raskin Asks Donald Trump To Return $7.8 Million He Received From Foreign Governments
HuffPost
The focus on Trump’s very real foreign government payments comes as Republicans push evidence-free claims that Joe Biden received similar payments.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) demanded former President Donald Trump return the $7.8 million foreign governments paid to his company while he served as president in a letter released on Friday.
“I write today to demand that you immediately return to the American people the $7,886,072 that we know you have accepted from foreign governments in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause — a fact you admitted, once again, at a Fox News town hall this week,” Raskin wrote in the letter addressed to Trump.
Trump admitted that foreign governments paid his Trump Organization millions of dollars for hotel stays during a Fox News town hall in Iowa on Wednesday.
“If I have a hotel and somebody comes in from China, that’s a small amount of money and it sounds like a lot of money,” Trump said. “That’s a small [amount of money], but I was doing services for that.”
After becoming president, Trump refused to divest from his business empire of hotels, real estate, golf courses and resorts and maintained control through a revocable trust led by his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump. During his presidency, those businesses received $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments, according to a report released by Raskin and House Oversight Committee Democrats on Jan. 3.
