As a new report by Public Citizen makes clear, the glimpses we've gotten of inner Trumpworld from the president's limited financial disclosures indicate that his business dealings, by design, couldn't be more complex, shadowy, or filled with corporate subterfuge. He excels, among other things, at using shell companies to hide the Trump Organization's profits (and losses) in the corporate labyrinth that makes up his empire. And even though the supposedly blind trust run by his sons is designed to shield him from that imperial entity's decision-making, it still potentially allows him maneuver room to increase his own fortune and glean profits along the way.
So, what's in such a shell? The answer: another shell, a company that usually has no employees, no offices, and no traceable capital. Think of such entities as financial gargoyles. They offer no real benefits to the economy, create no jobs, and do nothing to make America great again. However, they have the potential to do a great deal for the bottom lines of Donald Trump and his offspring.
Think of the corporate shell game he's been engaged in as his oyster. After all, anonymous buyers now make up the majority of those gobbling up pieces of his empire. Two years prior to his presidential victory, only 4% of the companies affiliated with people buying his properties were limited-liability, or LLC corporations, which are secretive in nature. Following his victory, that number jumped to 70%.
What that means in plain English is that there's simply no way of knowing who most of those investing in Trump properties actually are, what countries they come from, how they made their fortunes, or whether there might be any conflicts between their buy-ins to Trumpworld and the national interest of this country.
Trump Lawsuits Meet Pennsylvania Avenue
Secret as so many of his dealings may be, there's a very public aspect to them that Donald Trump has brought directly into the White House: his pattern of being sued. He's already been sued 134 times in federal court since he assumed the presidency. (Barack Obama had 26 suits against him and George W. Bush seven at the same moment in their presidencies.)
In other words, one of the nation's most litigious billionaires is in the process of becoming its most litigious president. A pre-election analysis in USA Today found that Trump and his businesses had been "involved in at least 3,500 legal actions in federal and state courts" over the previous three decades. That volume of lawsuits was unprecedented for a presidential candidate, let alone a president.
It's fair to say that the public will, in one fashion or another, bear some of the expenses from such lawsuits, as it will, of course, from a lengthening list of ongoing federal investigations, including those into Trump's business dealings with wealthy Russian businessmen and their various affiliates. According to Public Citizen, Trump formed at least 49 new business entities since announcing his candidacy (including some that were created after he was sworn in as CEO-in-chief). Of those 49, about half were related to projects in foreign countries, including Argentina, India, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. Since entering the Oval Office, Trump has met with leaders from each of those countries. And while it's hardly atypical of a President to meet with foreign leaders, in this case there can be little doubt that national policy overlaps with private interests big time.
As Public Citizen concluded, "Although just prior to being inaugurated as president, Trump announced plans to 'separate' himself from his business empire, he still maintains ownership in his corporations and merely reshuffled his businesses into holding companies that are held by a trust that is controlled by Trump himself." It added that he now has an ongoing stake of some sort in more than 500 businesses. Three-quarters of them are legally registered in Delaware, the largest tax-shelter state in the country. So expect plenty more trouble and suits and investigations to come.
The Era of Golf-plomacy
Trump has always had a knack for promoting his own properties. Now, however, he gets to do it on our dime. Indeed, we taxpayers fork over a million dollars or more every time the president simply takes a trip to visit his Mar-a-Lago private club in Florida, his National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey, or any of his other properties. During his first 241 days in office, he spent 79 days visiting his properties.
Meanwhile, a near-army of his well-connected friends and wannabe friends have been sharpening their golf games at Trump locales. At least 50 executives of companies that bagged sweetheart government contracts, as well as 21 lobbyists and trade group officials, are members of Trump golf courses in Florida, New Jersey, and Virginia. As the president's son Eric Trump told The New York Times, "I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been."
They're not just paying for golf, of course; they're paying for access. About two-thirds of them "happened" to be golfing during one of those 58 days when Trump, too, was present. It doesn't take an investigative reporter to show that whatever happens on a Trump golf course undoubtedly does not stay there. And keep in mind that the upkeep of the Trump entourage that travels from D.C. to those clubs with him is at least partially funded by us taxpayers, too.
Trump may tilt isolationist when it comes to countries that don't put money into his clubs and hotel suites, but the nations that do tend to be in big with him. To take one example, Saudi Arabia, the first stop on his first foreign tour, recently disclosed that it had spent $270,000 for lodgings and food at the new Trump International Hotel just down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House. Trump's lawyers have pledged to donate any money foreign governments pay that hotel to the Treasury Department. Yet, so far at least, Treasury's website has no such line item and the money promised for 2017 has now been pushed into 2018. Keep something else in mind: the Trump family forecast that it would lose about $2 million on that hotel in 2017. So far, it has made nearly a cool $2 million profit there instead.
While gaining unprecedented international coverage for his family-owned, for-profit business locales, Trump has created an ethical boundary problem previously unknown in the history of American governments. After all, we, the people, functionally pay taxes to his business empire to host foreign dignitaries, to feed them and provide appropriate security. In this context, the president has made a point of having official state visits at his properties, which ensures that we taxpayers get hit for expenses when, say, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe stay at Mar-a-Lago. Though the president swore he would cover Abe's stay, there's no evidence that it was more than a "fake claim."
Meanwhile, the Trump brand rolls on abroad. Though his election campaign took up the banner of isolationism, the Trump Organization didn't. Not for a second. On January 11th, days before placing his hand on the Bible to "defend the Constitution," Trump proudly noted that he "was offered $2 billion to do a deal in Dubai with a very, very, very amazing man, a great, great developer from the Middle East... And I turned it down. I didn't have to turn it down because, as you know, I have a no-conflict situation because I'm president... But I don't want to take advantage of something."
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