Tag: Trump organization

Trump’s company cancels strip-club-sponsored golf tournament at his Florida resort

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s company has canceled a golf tournament that a Miami-area strip club planned to hold at his Doral, Fla., resort this weekend.

In a statement, the president’s company said it canceled Shadow Cabaret’s tournament after the nonprofit named as the beneficiary of the event — Miami Allstars Foundation — dropped out earlier Wednesday.

“The event was originally booked with the understanding that it would be raising money to support a local charity benefiting underprivileged children,” a Trump Organization spokeswoman said in the statement. “Now that the charity has removed its affiliation, the event will no longer be taking place at our property and all amounts paid will be refunded.”

View the complete July 10 article by David A. Fahrenthold on The Washington Post website here.

Appeals court dismisses Emoluments Clause lawsuit in win for Trump

The Hill logoThe 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Maryland and the District of Columbia alleging that President Trump is violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, finding that they did not have the standing to sue the president.

The ruling is a major win for Trump, who has frequently sought to prevent others from reviewing his private financial records.
And it’s a sign that other lawsuits alleging similar violations of the Emoluments Clause — including one brought by more than 200 Democratic members of Congress — will face an uphill battle in succeeding.

View the complete July 10 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.

Trump signals bad news coming out of New York in extended rant against state investigations targeting his family

AlterNet logoPresident Donald Trump signaled possible new findings might be coming from investigators in New York state in a Monday afternoon Twitter rant.

The president sent out three tweets attacking the state’s Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James claiming harassment against his family and their businesses.

“It is very hard and expensive to live in New York,” Trump began. “Governor Andrew Cuomo uses his Attorney General as a bludgeoning tool for his own purposes. They sue on everything, always in search of a crime. I even got sued on a Foundation which took Zero rent & expenses & gave away more money than it had.”

View the complete July 1 article by Travis Gettys from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

Businessman involved in Trump Tower Moscow discussions to appear before Intelligence Committee staff

Washington Post logoThe House Intelligence Committee is expected to hear Tuesday from a businessman who worked with the Trump Organization on a couple of projects, including briefly discussing building a Trump tower in Moscow.

Giorgi Rtskhiladze, a native of Georgia who is a U.S. citizen, expects to be quizzed Tuesday by the committee’s staff about his brief role in the Trump Moscow development discussions and about a more provocative topic: a text message he sent to Michael Cohen shortly before the 2016 election that was cited in the recent report by Robert S. Mueller III.

The text sent by Rtskhiladze in October 2016 said he had “stopped the flow of tapes from Russia,” presumably a reference to reports of videotapes that might be embarrassing to then-candidate Donald Trump.

View the complete June 24 article by Tom Hamburger on The Washington Post website here.

Trump’s July Fourth Event Builds Profits For His Washington Hotel

Trump will line his own pockets while he wrecks the previously nonpartisan Fourth of July celebration in Washington, D.C., according to a Friday report from HuffPost.

The Trump International Hotel is already sold out on July 3 and 4, and prices on July 5 are more than twice what the hotel normally charges, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

As HuffPost reported, Trump never cut financial ties with his business empire, so he profits every time someone stays at his hotels. Last year, he made $41 million from the Trump hotel in Washington, D.C., while his daughter Ivanka, an unpaid White House senior adviser, made $4 million from her stake in the property.

View the complete June 21 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

Government Agencies Using Trump Hotels, Despite Official Ethics Advice

A bombshell report dropped late Thursday from the Washington Postshowing just how much money Trump has pocketed from taxpayers by encouraging government agencies to use his properties for official government events — a practice his own ethics officials know is wrong but have been powerless to stop.

Trump earned at least $1.6 million from both the federal government and Republican campaigns which have used his properties. And the Post cautioned that the actual number is likely much, much higher, given that the numbers they crunched were only from the first half of 2017 when Trump first took office. Since then, Trump, GOP lawmakers, and administration officials have made many more stops at his properties.

In fact, GOP fundraisers admit that’s why they hold fundraisers at Trump hotels — it increases the chances Trump might show up.

View the complete June 21 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Ivanka Trump Earned $4 Million During 2018 From Trump International Hotel

First daughter Ivanka Trump earned $4 million in 2018 from her investment in the Trump International Hotel in the nation’s capital, according to her personal financial disclosure, released by the White House on Friday and reported on by Bloomberg News.

Trump’s D.C. hotel has been an ethical nightmare ever since he entered the Oval Office.

Multiple entities are suing, saying Trump is violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution by profiting off the foreign governments who book rooms in the hotel while visiting Washington, D.C. — possibly in an attempt to influence Trump.

View the complete June 14 article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. is in jeopardy of losing its liquor license

The city board requires applicants to be of “good character and generally fit for the responsibilities of licensure.” Which….

The last two and a half years of this administration have been enough to cause anyone to reach for the drink. You just might not be able to do so at President Donald Trump’s own hotel.

This week, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration (ABRA) of Washington, D.C., which issues and regulates liquor licenses for private businesses operating in the District of Columbia, denied a motion by the Trump International Hotel to dismiss a complaint against its own license renewal — which means the president’s gaudy hotel situated along Pennsylvania Avenue might soon lose the ability to sell alcohol on the premises.

A group of at least five residents and property owners in the district filed a complaint with ABRA contesting the hotel’s application for a renewal of its liquor license, arguing that Trump, who remains an owner of the property, is unfit to be trusted with a controlled substance.

View the complete June 14 article by Adam Peck on the ThinkProgress website here.

Owners of former Trump hotel in Panama say president’s company evaded taxes

The majority owners of the former Trump Panama hotel — who last year removed President Trump’s name and cut ties with his company — say they’ve discovered old financial records showing that the Trump Organization was evading Panamanian taxes, according to a new legal filing.

That filing was made Monday in federal court in New York by Orestes Fintiklis, a Cypriot investor whose company is the majority owner of the building that once housed the Trump Ocean Club in Panama City. In March 2018, Fintiklis sought to fire the Trump Organization as the hotel’s manager — setting off an odd 10-day standoff that included visits from the police, shoving matches between Fintiklis’s staffers and Trump loyalists, and occasional piano concerts by Fintiklis in the lobby. Eventually, a Panamanian judge gave him control.

Now, the hotel is a Marriott. But Trump’s company and Fintiklis are still suing each other for millions in damages, with each accusing the other of breaching their prior agreements.

View the complete June 3 article by David A. Fahrenthold on The Washington Post website here.

“Trump, Inc.” and Former FBI Deputy Chief Andrew McCabe Compare Notes

McCabe talks about going after Russian organized crime in Brighton Beach as a young agent — and how some of those characters showed up in the Mueller report.

Before he became infamous for working on the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump Russia investigation, former acting FBI chief Andrew McCabe investigated the Russian mob in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. McCabe has been asking some of the questions we at “Trump, Inc.” have asked ourselves about Trump’s business. So today, we compare notes.

In this conversation with Andrea Bernstein and Heather Vogell, of “Trump, Inc.,” McCabe talks about why it makes sense that some of the people he investigated in the 1990s have resurfaced in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, what questions he still has after the Mueller report and why he and former FBI director Jim Comey have said Trump’s management style reminds them of the mob.

Trump has long denied any wrongdoing, and he has said he was simply acting as an ordinary businessman in his Russia dealings.

View the complete May 29 article by Heather Vogell of ProPublica and Andrea Bernstein of WNYC in the ProPublica website here.