Coronavirus is killing the economy, but Trump has to watch his own wallet
Trump’s finances have come under the microscope in the Supreme Court and overseas.
The coronavirus has upended the economy with record unemployment, bankruptcies, shuttered businesses and more. And while President Donald Trump is managing the country’s deficit, he’s dealing with perpetual investigations into his own.
Who is investigating Trump?
Committees in the Democrat-led House of Representatives and a grand jury working with a prosecutor in New York City are looking to enforce subpoenas against businesses associated with Trump to disclose his financial records, according to Reuters.
Attempts to disclose Trump’s finances have been met with walls and unprecedented difficulty, if not outright impossibility. He is the first presidential candidate from a major party to not release his tax returns since Gerald Ford in 1976, according to Reuters.
The three cases scrutinize his dealings with accounting firm Mazars LLP and two banks: Deutsche Bank and Capital One. Two of the cases are fueled by the enforcement of subpoenas from House committees to Mazars LLP and the banks. The other case also concerns a subpoena for similar information, but it’s part of a grand jury investigation into Trump from New York City.
Tell me more about these subpoenas
The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to Mazars LLP in April 2019 for eight years of accounting and financial information after Michael Cohen testified before Congress. Cohen testified that between 2011 and 2013 Trump manipulated certain assets on his financial statements to reduce his real estate taxes.
The House Financial Services Committee has been investigating possible money laundering involving Trump, while the House Intelligence Committee is investigating whether Trump’s foreign deals have put him under foreign influence. These two separate investigations have resulted in subpoenas in April 2019 to Deutsche Bank asking for Trump’s financial records, especially any dealing with foreign individuals or governments.
Capital One also received a subpoena from the Financial Services Committee due to their long standing relationship with Trump.
Why is it so hard to get Trump’s records?
Trump has been very vocal about his opposition to sharing his records, citing that he will do so on his own terms and giving vague timelines as to when. He has said that he will before the 2020 election, but to date has not.
Deutsche Bank denied a request in April for information about the bank’s dealings with Trump and his family this year. The request was made by four Democratic senators — led by Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — out of a concern that the bank may be giving Trump and his family preferential treatment on loan repayment as the bank itself is under investigation from the Department of Justice, according to Reuters.
“It’s outrageous we don’t know what secret favors the President and his family might be getting from the bank, or what favors the bank may be getting in return,” Warren told Reuters.
And he has some fishy business in China
Trump has borrowed mass sums of money and accumulated debt from multiple sources. One of those sources was the state-owned Bank of China: In 2012, his real estate partner refinanced a Trump property. $211 million of the nearly $1 billion debt was from the Bank of China, according to POLITICO.
The Bank of China eventually sold that debt, but Trump’s financial connections to China continued — even as his inflammatory comments against China heightened amid a trade war and the pandemic.
Chinese state-owned companies are helping construct two Trump properties — one in the United Arab Emirates and another in Indonesia — while Ivanka Trump has been awarded trademarks by the Chinese government, according to POLITICO.
This raises the question of a possible conflict of interest for Trump. He still owns his business, even though his sons run it, so the possibility of profiting from a business that has clear ties to a foreign country raises a question of integrity.
“We actually explored all these foreign enterprises and how once he became president he’d be seen differently by foreign leaders who would have leverage over this president because he had investments in their countries and/or financial dealings with business enterprises and financial institutions and investors in their countries,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the House Oversight Committee, told POLITICO. “He is highly conflicted with respect to China.”
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