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SunSeeker

(51,367 posts)
Wed Oct 21, 2020, 02:38 AM Oct 2020

WaPo: Voters don't need a definitive number to know that the Trump family is fleecing taxpayers

THE STATE DEPARTMENT has reported that it has about 450 pages of records detailing its spending at properties owned by President Trump. The public has a right to this information. The State Department, responding to a public records lawsuit brought by The Post, said in August it would try to produce 300 of the pages by Oct. 15.

Want to guess how many pages it actually coughed up that day? Two — that’s right, a paltry two pages. No explanation was provided and, in a further thumb in the eye to the public’s right to know, the State Department signaled it has no plans to release more until mid-November. That is, of course, after the election that will decide whether Mr. Trump gets another four years in office. The State Department’s stonewalling is part of an overall effort by the president and his administration to keep secret how much public money has gone to his businesses, again raising troubling questions of what Mr. Trump is hiding. It’s also a sign of how he is infecting the entire government with his contempt for the law and the public.

The repeated refusal by federal and Trump Organization officials to provide information about government spending benefiting Mr. Trump’s properties — and often underwriting the travel of his adult children — prompted The Post to undertake an effort, led by reporter David A. Fahrenthold, to compile its own tally by using Freedom of Information Act requests and a lawsuit to obtain receipts one at a time. So far, The Post has found more than $1.2?million in federal money paid to Mr. Trump’s company, largely for hotel rooms and other expenses for aides and Secret Service agents when Mr. Trump visits — which he does with frequency — his own properties.

The lawsuit filed by The Post in June alleged that the State Department had improperly withheld all records responsive to eight public record requests submitted over the previous three months. Under the law, federal agencies are required to respond to requests in 20 business days, followed by prompt delivery of documents. Of the 450 documents the State Department catalogued as responsive to The Post’s requests, it produced just two documents showing $8,316 paid to the Trump Organization’s Doonbeg golf club in Ireland for a visit of Trump’s daughter-in-law and campaign adviser Lara Trump. Redacted from the records was the rate per room the organization charged federal taxpayers. Good guess it wasn’t the bargain rate Mr. Trump’s son Eric Trump once claimed is all the organization charges the government.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/voters-dont-need-a-definitive-number-to-know-that-the-trump-family-is-fleecing-taxpayers/2020/10/20/89ba2ba6-124a-11eb-bc10-40b25382f1be_story.html

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SunSeeker

(51,367 posts)
2. If he is charging Secret Service more for rooms than regular customers, that's defrauding the govt.
Wed Oct 21, 2020, 04:35 AM
Oct 2020

A few defense contractors got hit for that sort of thing in the past.

uponit7771

(90,225 posts)
4. Via emoluments I think they have to pay back a bunch of money if congress finds they violated ...
Wed Oct 21, 2020, 07:10 AM
Oct 2020

... a bunch of the clauses.

Garnish wages and put holds on Trump accounts, that in and of itself should be some of the first orders of business when the new congress comes into power.

We want peace, we work for justice ... Trump is NOT going to go away once he loses he will control a base of 5% minimum of his cult county wide in America.

That control will allow him to be kingmaker in the kGOP, use taking away all his money if he wont shut up

bucolic_frolic

(42,654 posts)
3. With Powell sloshing the trillions around, what's a few billion skimmed off the top?
Wed Oct 21, 2020, 05:32 AM
Oct 2020

How good are watchdogs in Congress, or even NGOs? They don't have complete information. They don't even have his tax returns.

Tanuki

(14,893 posts)
5. Why in the world was the State Dept. paying for Lara Trump's trip to Ireland?
Wed Oct 21, 2020, 08:57 AM
Oct 2020

Aside from pumping money into Trump properties and promoting their personal business, this doesn't seem to have any legitimate government purpose.

 

not_the_one

(2,227 posts)
7. 1.2 million? BS!
Wed Oct 21, 2020, 01:46 PM
Oct 2020

I bet it is HUNDREDS of millions, through all his pretzel accounting methods..

AND he has been siphoning it to off shore/out of country accounts.

Even if we take every penny and freeze any remaining, he has MILLIONS that can't be touched.

Americans need to know totals, or as close as possible. Sometimes we need to have our face rubbed in shit before we can actually SMELL the shit.

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