A top House Democrat is calling on Donald Trump to return the nearly $8 million he collected from foreign governments while he was president.
A report released last week by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee alleges that Trump’s companies — mostly his hotels and resorts — were paid at least $7.8 million by countries like China, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The report, which includes more than 100 pages of documents detailing the payments, argued the transactions violated a constitutional ban on payments from foreign governments to public officials.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, demanded that Trump give back the money, arguing his acceptance of the money was a “stunning violation of the U.S. Constitution.”
“Your violations of the U.S. Constitution and failure to place your duty of loyalty to the American people over your personal financial interests were entirely willful and knowing,” Raskin said.
Democrats have renewed a focus on the foreign payments Trump received while president, pointing to the Constitution, which prohibits elected officials from accepting emoluments, or profits, from a foreign state without approval from Congress. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 tossed out two lawsuits against the former president on the issue, ruling the issue moot since he was no longer in office. The decision by the court left open the question of whether presidents can receive payments from foreign governments without approval from Congress.
Trump, at a town hall with Fox News this week, refused to say whether he would divest from his businesses if elected president a second time and justified the payments he received from overseas while he was president.
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Clinton, Iowa, on Jan. 06, 2024. Scott Olson/Getty Images
“If I have a hotel and somebody comes in from China, that’s a small amount of money. I was doing services for that,” Trump said at the event on Wednesday. “People were staying in these massive hotels, these beautiful hotels, and they stayed there and they paid. I don’t get $8 million for doing nothing.”
The former president's son, Eric Trump, claimed last week that his father's foreign profits were donated to the Treasury Department.
Democrats have said that the nearly $8 million that their report details is likely much smaller than the total revenue that Trump generated while he was in office, pointing out that they were only basing the report off partial financial records provided by Trump’s former accounting firm before the flow of documents was shut off early last year.
Raskin demanded that Trump provide the committee with the full financial records.
“You must provide Congress with a full accounting of all payments, benefits, or other emoluments you received from foreign governments or their agents, including through the more than 500 entities you own, during your term as president — and you must pay to the American people the total amount in foreign emoluments you accepted as President,” Raskin said.
The Messenger has reached out to Trump’s representatives for comment.