In an interview on MSNBC, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), who serves on the House Oversight Committee, accused ex-President Donald Trump of violating key provisions of the Constitution when he was in office.
The Constitutional rules at issue decisively restrict public officials from receiving things of value from foreign governments, and Trump, through his businesses, apparently benefited from millions of dollars in foreign money while he was serving as president.
As summarized by Democrats on the Oversight panel, a sum of $7.8 million that they spotlighted in a new report (which Goldman was discussing) just covers spending at four Trump-branded entities: Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York, and Trump World Tower at 845 United Nations Plaza in New York. The Trump hotel in D.C. is no longer operational, and the business future of Trump’s New York properties remains in limbo amid the progression of a fraud case from New York’s state Attorney General Letitia James.
“It’s not Joe Biden. It was Donald Trump,” Goldman said, discussing suspicion-sparking financial flows from foreign sources. “Donald Trump who received nearly $8 million in, yes, just the first two years of his four-year presidency from 20 foreign countries, including the most from China. While he was in office, while he was making executive decisions, he was taking money from foreign governments. That’s a violation of the emoluments clause, but you know who doesn’t violate the emoluments clause by investing in foreign companies and making money? Hunter Biden, a private citizen.”
Republicans, particularly the party’s members currently on the Oversight panel, have been desperately trying to cultivate suspicion around supposed possibilities of financial ties between the current president (meaning Joe Biden) and various business arrangements implicating foreign interests. But in these dealings, which involved family members of the president including his son Hunter, no direct link to the president has actually been established — which hasn’t stopped Republicans from moving forward with a related impeachment inquiry anyway.
