The Plain Truth Staff
A United Arab Emirates (UAE) government-backed firm has announced that it will be making a $2 billion business deal using Donald Trump’s meme coin, which will financially benefit the Trump family. The announcement was made on a panel that included president Trump’s son Eric Trump.
In response to the news, Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“Never before in American history have foreign governments, as well as people and corporations under investigation, so overtly and directly funneled vast sums to the president of the United States and his family. This is far more than is captured by the term “conflict of interest.” It is foreign policy for sale and justice for sale. And, as one of the executives in the deal said, ‘it is only the beginning.’
“With a president who has no regard for the basic norms of propriety, ethics, the law or the U.S. Constitution, the question is: Will the U.S. Congress permit this mockery of the American people? Or will it insist on the most minimal baseline standards, so that foreign governments cannot send money directly to the president and his family?”
Donald Trump insists that he is maintaining a strict distance between his presidency and his business interests, and he maintains that he is avoiding conflicts of interest by letting his son, Eric Trump, handle the Trump Organization.
But in an article published by the New York Times on May 5, journalists Eric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany report that during Trump’s presidency, his business is making more foreign deals than ever.
The deals, according to Lipton and Yaffe-Bellany, are being orchestrated by Eric Trump and his older brother, Donald Trump Jr.
“It is a rush to cash in that involves billions of dollars with few precedents in American history,” the Times reporters explain. “A luxury hotel in Dubai. A second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two cryptocurrency ventures based in the United States. A new golf course and villa complex in Qatar. And a new private club in Washington. In many cases, these new deals promoted over the last week will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also, President Trump himself.”
- In the wake of Donald J. Trump’s election victory, his family business is poised to capitalize on his presidency with a variety of new ventures, according to a New York Times review of financial records and interviews with people knowledgeable about his finances. And unlike in his first term, the people said, the Trump Organization aims to issue a more limited ethics plan that is unlikely to significantly curb its growth.
- As the inauguration approaches, Eric Trump, Mr. Trump’s second son and the company’s de facto leader, is expected to forgo deals directly with foreign governments. But he is not planning to revive the promise the company made eight years ago to swear off all other foreign deals while his father occupies the White House.
- Without that guardrail — the centerpiece of the Trump Organization’s 2017 ethics plan — the company would be free to profit from an array of business in countries essential to American foreign policy interests. In the months leading up to Election Day, Eric Trump struck real estate deals in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and he has shown interest in new hotel projects in Israel and other countries across the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.
- World Liberty Financial, a new cryptocurrency platform that the Trumps helped create, recently received a lucrative investment from a Chinese entrepreneur, a deal that could ultimately pay the family about $22 million. The president-elect’s publicly traded social media company, which represents his single greatest source of wealth, is also open to foreign investment.
- The new ventures — both of which will face oversight from federal regulators appointed by the president — underscore how the company’s recent expansion created an even more complicated web of conflicts than in Mr. Trump’s first term. And much like the Trump administration, the Trump Organization will be unleashed in the second term, free to pursue new deals that could blur the lines between the presidency and the business.
- The company’s existing properties will also continue to mix business and politics like they did in Mr. Trump’s first term, when his supporters spent lavishly at his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago.
- As president, Mr. Trump is exempt from civil and criminal conflict of interest laws that would otherwise require a senior federal official to sell holdings in companies that might benefit from his or her actions.
- Mr. Trump put his assets into a trust at the start of his first term, but his older sons remained in control of the company. And Mr. Trump still profits from family business operations.
- While the Trump Organization is not planning to restore its ban on all foreign deals, it is considering other ethical safeguards it adopted during the first Trump presidency, the people familiar said, as it seeks to blunt public outrage and potential lawsuits.
- The company is working on what it will call an ethics “white paper” that will detail those steps, including the prohibition on deals directly with foreign governments.
- The precise details of the white paper are subject to change until they are announced in the coming weeks.
- Eric Trump is currently working on Trump-branded projects in Oman, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, India, Vietnam and the United Arab Emirates. But his keynote speech to the Bitcoin conference on Tuesday will, more than any other recent move, encapsulate the complicated ethical environment the family is embracing this time around.
- In a late October filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the founders of World Liberty Financial listed Eric Trump, along with his brother, Donald J. Trump Jr., as “promoters” of the crypto platform. President-elect Trump is named, on a separate document, as the
- One outside investment has already come to World Liberty Financial from Justin Sun, a Chinese-born cryptocurrency entrepreneur. The S.E.C. sued Mr. Sun last year, claiming that he fraudulently
- Mr. Trump’s social media company also stands to gain from his presidency as its leadership considers starting a cryptocurrency payment service, according to a trademark application filed last month. The company is not run directly by the Trump family, but Donald Trump Jr. serves on the board of directors and President-elect Trump owns about $4 billion of its stock, making it his most valuable asset.
- The company itself, in a recent filing with the S.E.C., conceded that its stock value would rise or fall based on Mr. Trump’s public standing.
- Any new real estate deals, particularly when they involve overseas locations, will also raise questions as the Trump Organization continues to form partnerships around the world, including in Saudi Arabia and Oman, which play vital roles in a politically volatile region. A project with Dar Al Arkan, the real estate company, that is underway in Oman involves profit sharing with the government, which owns the land where the golf course, hotel and villas are selling for as much as $10 million.
- Although the opening of the resort destination is still at least three years off, the Trump Organization has already raked in at least $7.5 million from the Oman deal, financial reports from the last two years show.
- A separate development deal — including hotels, golf courses and residential communities — was announced in October for Vietnam.