WASHINGTON – The House Oversight Committee’s top Democrat released a report Thursday that described $7.8 million in foreign government-related payments to Donald Trump’s businesses for hotel stays and office leases during his four-year presidency – trying to counter a Republican impeachment inquiry into President Biden’s role in foreign affairs. advance.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) wrote in the introduction to the 156-page report that “Donald Trump, during his presidency, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign countries and royalties.”
Republicans have traced tens of millions of dollars in cash flows from countries such as China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Russia and Ukraine to President Biden’s son Hunter, brother James and other relatives during and shortly after his vice presidency — and say the president has repeated times lied about his interactions with their foreign counterparts while steering US policy toward the country.
But Raskin, who has led Democrats in an attempt to deflect the Biden impeachment inquiry by raising questions about Trump’s conduct, wrote that his report “allowed Americans to see the rampant lawlessness and corruption of the Trump presidency.”
The document is likely to be heavily cited by Democrats during an expected debate later this year over articles of impeachment against Biden for alleged corruption and obstruction of congressional investigations.
Republicans have argued that Trump, unlike the Bidens, appears to be providing tangible business services in exchange for income.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said that “Donald Trump, during his presidency, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign countries and royalties.” Getty Images
CHINA
Like the Biden family, the main source of foreign income for the Trump Organization is China, according to the report, which describes nearly $5.6 million in payments from Beijing-linked firms, citing records obtained through litigation with accounting firm Mazars USA.
Nearly $5.4 million in Chinese funds — or more than two-thirds of the total foreign funds tracked by the report — came from a $1.9 million annual lease on Manhattan’s Trump Tower by the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which began in 2008 and expired during Trump’s presidency in October 2019.
The report also listed more than $19,000 spent by a Chinese Embassy delegation in August 2017 to stay at Trump’s then-D.C. hotel near the White House and more than $195,000 by a state-linked Chinese airline to stay at Trump’s hotel in Las Vegas — payments that spanned 2016, before becoming president, and continued until 2018.
Trump promised before taking office in 2017 to donate all profits his business made from foreign governments to the US Treasury, although it is unclear whether he did so. Trump did turn down his $400,000 annual salary as president.
Like the Biden family, the top foreign source of income for the Trump Organization is China, according to the report. Reuters
Additional Trump-China business interactions are described in the report but not counted in the total — including income from state-linked Chinese company CEFC China Energy, which bought a unit in Trump Tower in 2012 and sold it in October 2020.
“Assuming that the base charges [at Trump Tower] unchanged during the four years of the Trump presidency, [CEFC subsidiary] Hong Kong Huaxin Petroleum Limited paid Trump World Tower at least $152,505 during the four years of Trump’s presidency,” the report said.
CEFC is best known for paying Hunter and James Biden millions of dollars in 2017 and 2018, and Joe Biden was directly involved in their efforts through several written communications, in addition to allegedly meeting twice with their business partners.
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A May 2017 email suggested a 10% cut to Joe Biden in his family’s CEFC effort, and a few months later, an email described him being involved in a call about US natural gas. He was also name-checked by Hunter Biden in a July 2017 text message to an associate based in China, in which the now-first son wrote that he was “sitting here with my father” and threatened his family’s wrath if the deal wasn’t done. enacted.
The message immediately preceded a $5.1 million transfer to a Biden family entity, after an initial $3 million was released months earlier. Another transfer of $1 million reportedly occurred later.
As part of the Biden family’s previous business ties to China, Hunter Biden in 2013 founded a Beijing-backed investment fund called BHR Partners — just 12 days after joining his father on Air Force Two for an official trip to Beijing.
Joe Biden had coffee with incoming BHR CEO Jonathan Li during the trip and later spoke with Li on speakerphone during a subsequent visit to China by then-second son Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer told the Oversight Committee during a July deposition .
Hunter held a 10% stake in BHR through at least part of his father’s first year as president and the terms of his disposal remain unclear.
“It is beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former President Trump. Former President Trump has a legitimate business but the Biden family does not,” Comer said. AP
SAUDI ARABIA AND OTHERS
Another revenue stream for Trump’s business came from Saudi Arabia, which paid more than $615,000 over four years, according to Raskin’s report, including payments related to the country’s ownership of the 45th floor of Trump Tower and a March 2018 stay at Trump’s DC hotel.
Saudi business dealings with the Trump family since he left office are expected to be a major point of contention if Trump regains the White House.
The country has partnered with Trump’s golf courses by staging the LIV Golf tournament and investing $2 billion with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in 2021.
Qatar paid more than $465,000 related to Trump Tower and the Doha government was also controversially involved in the Manhattan office deal with the Kushner family.
A third Middle Eastern country, Kuwait, paid more than $303,000 between Trump Tower and DC hotel expenses.
Other top spenders include India (nearly $283,000 for Trump Tower and Trump DC hotel), Malaysia (about $249,000 for DC hotel costs) and Afghanistan (about $155,000 between Trump Tower and DC hotel).
IMMIGRANT: ‘SPEAKING PARODY’
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) tore apart Raskin’s report as irrelevant to Biden’s alleged misconduct.
“It is beyond parody that Democrats continue their obsession with former President Trump. Former President Trump has a legitimate business but the Biden family does not,” Comer said.
“The Bidens and their allies earned over $24 million by running on the Biden name in China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Romania. No goods or services are provided other than access to Joe Biden and the Biden network.”
A Trump spokesman did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Joe Biden, while vice president, used speakerphone for about 20 of his son Hunter’s foreign business meetings and attended two dinners at DC’s Milano Cafe — in 2014 and 2015 — with his son’s Kazakhstani, Russian and Ukrainian clients, Archer told the Committee Monitoring in July.
Dinner guests included former Moscow first lady Yelena Baturina, who transferred $3.5 million to a Hunter Biden-related entity in early 2014 and separately invested $100 million with Archer’s Rosemont Realty, which was briefly linked to Hunter Biden.
Kazakh businessman Kenes Rakishev, who bought his second son a $142,000 sports car at the time, also had dinner with Joe Biden and posed for pictures with him.
Vadym Pozharsky, a board adviser to Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings, which paid Hunter up to $1 million a year starting in 2014 when his father assumed control of US policy toward Ukraine, wrote an email thanking Hunter the next day for the chance to meet his father.
Archer said that Hunter Biden left a gathering at the Four Seasons in Dubai to “call DC” with Burisma owners Mykola Zlochevsky and Pozharsky in December 2015.
An FBI whistleblower file released in July said Zlochevsky complained in 2016 that he was “forced” to pay $10 million in bribes to Joe and Hunter Biden in exchange for the then-vice president’s help in ousting Ukrainian Prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who has since been removed. from office in March 2016 after a campaign by Joe Biden. Claims of corruption have not been proven.
In another connection, Joe Biden in November 2015 hosted and gave a White House tour to Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and members of the wealthy Mexican Aleman family, which Hunter Biden and his friend Jeff Cooper appealed to with energy and technology.
Joe Biden is pictured at the VP’s official residence with Cooper, Hunter Biden, Carlos Slim, Miguel Alemán Velasco, and his son Miguel Aleman Magnani, founder of the Interjet airline.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
