Dear John,

One thing we have to admit is that Trump has taught us a lot about the U.S. Constitution.

Before Trump, most people never thought much about the Emoluments Clause, because no previous president had ever allowed foreign governments to curry favor by conducting millions of dollars worth of business with hotels, restaurants, and other businesses the president owned.

But now, a new report by Rep. Jamie Raskin and Democrats on the House Oversight Committee indicates that, through his hotels in Washington, New York, and Las Vegas, and the Manhattan Trump Tower, Trump received at least $7.8 million from the governments of some 20 countries while he was in office.

However, it’s unknown how many millions more Trump may have received.

The report includes analysis of only four of Trump’s over 500 businesses, as the investigation was curtailed when Republican James Comer took over the committee in 2022.

Fortunately, the House Democrats’ report need not be the last word. The Senate too has jurisdiction.

Urge Senator Gary Peters, chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, to pick up the Emoluments investigation and determine the full extent of Trump’s grift now.

When Trump took over the White House in 2017, he maintained his own personal ownership of all his businesses, while handing over day-to-day operations to his sons. Of all his properties, Trump International Hotel in Washington was the one most frequently patronized by foreign dignitaries during his presidency.

Despite Trump’s frequent vilification of China, even as he expressed unlimited admiration of Chairman Xi’s dictatorship, between 2017 and 2019 China was Trump’s single biggest customer, spending nearly $5.6 million at Trump Tower and Trump’s hotels in Washington and Las Vegas.

Trump’s second biggest foreign booster was Saudi Arabia, which between 2017 and 2020 spent over $615,000 at Trump World Tower in New York and the Trump Hotel in Washington. Even before taking office, Trump boasted of his special ties to his Saudi benefactors, as he said at a campaign rally in 2015:

“Saudi Arabia, I get along great with all of them. They buy apartments from me. They spend $40 million, $50 million," he said. "Am I supposed to dislike them? I like them very much!”

House Democrats question whether these payments were a factor in Trump’s response to the torture and killing of Washington Post reporter Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, when he publicly doubted his own CIA’s conclusion that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the killing.^[1]

After Saudi Arabia, Qatar was the next biggest spender, dropping over $465,000 at Trump World Tower. Other countries filling Trump’s coffers included Kuwait, Afghanistan, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates.

These figures are concerning enough, but who knows how much more foreign governments spent at Trump’s other hundreds of businesses?

This is why we need to call on Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chair Gary Peters to take action: It’s time to get a full accounting of what foreign funds Trump received privately while holding public office, and to require him to relinquish any ill-gotten gains to the U.S. Treasury immediately.

Thank you for holding the Presidency to the ethical standards established by the U.S. Constitution.

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action

^{[1] Trump businesses got millions in foreign payments while he was president, Dems say}