Among over half a dozen loans that Donald Trump at least originally didn’t include on financial disclosure forms filed while in office as president was a debt held by Trump — or at least his companies — in the tens of millions to a South Korean firm, the concealment of which could have violated the law.
Although federal rules demand disclosures of loans made to individual office-holders, the key factor would be whether Trump personally guaranteed the large debt, which was owed by entities he wholly owned. The $19.8 million left in debt following what records seemingly indicate was a principal of $25 million persisted in part while Trump held office as president, and details of the arrangement — with a company called Daewoo — have been revealed through Trump business records obtained by the New York state attorney general.
Forbes reported earlier this month that “it’s not clear exactly when or how” the loan originated. Daewoo originally partnered with Trump in the late 1990s on a development in New York City near the headquarters of the United Nations, and Trump eventually agreed to share some of the income associated with licensing what was apparently his personal brand with the company. Daewoo may have provided support for or been owed liabilities from Trump projects in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Brazil, Florida, Arizona, Canada, and Chicago based on reporting in Forbes, which indicates the millions in debt was connected to these locales in relevant records. The loan money also could have represented a separate arrangement.
Although the debt ties back at least to the early 2010s, Trump suddenly got it all paid off by July of the first year of his presidency. At least $4.3 million was swept away from Trump’s personal balance sheet in a single week prior to that point. Obligations to Daewoo were apparently satisfied on July 5 — although on June 30, there was still $4.3 million in company debt owed to Daewoo. Allen Weisselberg, the embattled longtime Trump ally who recently pleaded guilty to over a dozen felony charges for a tax evasion scheme and testified at the subsequent Trump company trial on similar allegations that ended in a jury verdict of guilty on all counts, claimed in 2016 that all debts held by business entities wholly owned by Trump had been disclosed, which the revelation of this debt proves was false.
Other loans that went unreported on financial disclosures filed by Trump include millions he provided to his three most prominent adult children, including Donald Jr., Eric, and Ivanka Trump. Federal rules do not require office-holders to disclose money owed them by members of their immediate family, although Forbes says what Trump provided his children reached at least a million for each — and for Eric Trump, $2 million. The money was apparently in support of the three obtaining apartment space in Trump buildings. Evidently, they weren’t benefiting from the kind of tax evasion scheme in which the Trump company was responsible for apartment space for Weisselberg that wasn’t properly reported alongside other high-dollar benefits of his employment.
