Document production lallapalooza -House Oversight re GSA & Trump DC
Oh and Biden waives executive privilege - which should make the House Oversight and Select Committee on Jan6th super happy
…concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts from GSA when bidding on the Old Post Office Building lease..
In the October 8, 2021 Letter from the House OverSight Committee to the GSA…
..the Committee found that President Trump provided misleading information about the financial situation of the Trump Hotel in his annual financial disclosures; received undisclosed preferential treatment from a foreign bank on a $170 million loan to the hotel that the President personally guaranteed; accepted millions of dollars in emoluments from foreign governments without providing an accounting of the money’s source or purpose; concealed hundreds of millions of dollars in debts from GSA when bidding on the Old Post Office Building lease ; and made it impossible for GSA to properly enforce the lease’s conflict-of-interest restrictions by engaging in opaque transactions with other affiliated entities…
The letter to the GSA goes on to state the following 1 2 3
Under the Trump Administration, GSA failed to substantially comply with the Committee’s requests for 14 categories of documents related to GSA’s award and management of the Trump Hotel lease and GSA’s interpretation of certain lease provisions. These requests included information that President Trump submitted to GSA regarding his financial capacity and capability to successfully execute the project, which GSA relied on in awarding him the federal lease for the Old Post Office Building
… when Mr. Trump became President on January 20, 2017…he violated the express terms of the lease…
On July 9, 2021, GSA finally produced some of the documents the Committee had been seeking, including the Trump Hotel’s audited financial statements prepared by President Trump’s longtime accounting firm, WeiserMazars LLC (Mazars), later Mazars USA LLP, for the years 2014 through 2020; three years’ worth of President Trump’s statements of financial condition that were compiled by Mazars; and correspondence between GSA and President Trump’s business entities regarding the lease…
…Trump never established a blind trust or took the steps to divest his personal interest…
Like many I have had a lot to say about Weisselberg and Trump’s Revocable Trust, found here -and I’ve had a lot to say about conservation easements too - in the context of Weisselberg’s Indictment (also see previous article found here) —today’s publication of a large tranche of previously unreleased documents is
President Trump transferred his business interests to the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, and named as trustees his son, Donald J. Trump, Jr., and the Trump Organization’s longtime Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg. However, by its own terms, the “purpose of the Trust is to hold assets for the benefit of Donald J. Trump.” President Trump remained the beneficiary of the trust, meaning that any financial benefits that accrued to his businesses ultimately benefited him
I mean when a letter includes a flow chart to fulling layout the various Trump entities then you have to understand that - slow and steady always wins the race and by taking this pragmatic approach the House Oversight is holding three of a kind and they are betting on the flop it will become a four of a kind..
records reflect a total loss of more than $73 million from 2016 to 2020
The House Oversight Committee obtained additional documents which disclosed the following scheme concerning Trump, Trump DC and the GSA:
privately reported tens of millions of dollars in losses to GSA, he hid these losses from the American public by omitting them from his federally mandated, public financial disclosures.
falsely portraying that his hotel was a successful business.
Trump concealed significant ethical issues stemming from his failing business. The hotel’s massive losses decreased President
his public financial disclosures, President Trump reported tens of millions of dollars of “employment income” from the Trump Hotel, under the description “hotel related revenue.”
reported annual income of $15 million to over $40 million from the Trump Hotel from 2016 through 2020, totaling more than $156 million in purported income.
according to Trump Hotel financial statements obtained by the Committee, during this same four-year period, the Trump Hotel actually sustained a net loss of $2.5 million to $22 million each year, for a total loss of more than $73 million from 2016 to 2020
House Oversight documents previously released by the Committee
Notwithstanding these newly obtained documents disclosed:
Trump Reported Massive Revenues at the Trump Hotel. Which Concealed the fact the Hotel Suffered $70 Million in Net Losses.
the federally mandated financial disclosures, President Trump reported that the Trump Hotel earned him over $150 million in revenue during his time in office. However, the records obtained by the Committee show that the Trump Hotel actually incurred net losses of over $70 million, leading the former President’s holding company to inject at least $24 million to aid the struggling hotel.
By filing these misleading public disclosures, President Trump grossly exaggerated the financial health of the Trump Hotel. He also appears to have concealed potential conflicts of interest stemming not just from his ownership of this failing business but also from his roles as the hotel’s lender and the guarantor of its third-party loans.
Deutsche Bank Deferred principal payments of Trump’s $170M loan…
Under the terms of the loan in effect prior to Donald Trump’s becoming President, the Trump Hotel was scheduled to begin principal repayments on the Deutsche Bank loan beginning in 2018.
While in Office, President Trump Received Preferential Treatment Potentially Worth Millions from a Foreign Bank.
2018, Deutsche Bank provided President Trump with a significant financial benefit. This allowed Trump to delay making any principal payments on the Trump Hotel’s $170 million loan—of which Trump had personally guaranteed—for a period of six years.
absent the Deutsche Bank “deferral” Trump’s DC Hotel hotel would have been required to pay tens of millions of additional dollars to Deutsche Bank at a time when it was already facing steep losses.
Trump did not publicly disclose this significant benefit from a foreign bank while he was President…
The Trump Hotel Received Over $3.7 Million from Foreign Governments.
from 2017 through 2020, the Trump Hotel received an estimated $3.7 million in payments from foreign governments. Which undoubtedly raised concerns and violations of the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause.
This amount would have been sufficient to cover over 7,400 nights at the Trump Hotel at the average daily rate.
Trump failed to disclose details about these payments to GSA, and he “donated” to the Treasury only the small portion of these payments that his company determined to be profits.
Former President Trump Concealed Debts When Bidding on Old Post Office Building Lease. In 2011, when he applied to lease the Old Post Office Building, former President Trump provided GSA with financial information that appeared to conceal certain debts.
In he a 2008 financial statement that reported over $1.1 billion in outstanding loan balances for properties in Chicago, Las Vegas, New York, and San Francisco.
Although these loans remained outstanding in 2009 and 2010, President Trump omitted them from his financial statements for those years, hiding key information.
The Trump Hotel Moved Around Millions of Dollars in Opaque Transactions with Other Trump Businesses. President Trump transferred millions of dollars in and out of his D.C. Hotel through affiliated entities and opaque transactions, raising questions about GSA’s ability to enforce provisions that prohibited President Trump from taking money out of the business.
Again all of today’s documents are public information and look math isn’t my strong suit - but the fact is Trump and Trump Org made repeated material misrepresentation to the GSA and that in of itself is super bad.
President Biden waives Executive Privilege re January 6, 2021…
Also can we please stop with the histrionics about Bannon, Meadows, Patel and Scavino not cooperate with the Select Committee Subpoenas? Because inevitably we all knew these four Trump stooges wouldn’t comply — as for inherent contempt.
YES Congress has that authority but the 117th Congress didn’t make it part of the Rules governing the 117th Congress — so calm down because the end result is by Waiving Privilege —there’s a strong likelihood that the Select Committee doesn’t need these Four stooges to comply - because this tweet shows how woefully uninformed he is by making this prognostication. Which is ironic because I spent hours explaining to him the process of Inherent Contempt… but again if you want to believe what he’s shilling —that’s entirely up to you —Me? I’d rather stick to the fats of which I can immediately back up with actual documents.
My point is sure the Select Committee on Jan6th could ← operative word make a criminal referral to the DOJ for Bannon, Meadows, Patel & Scavino not complying with a lawful Congressional Subpoena.
Congress’ Inherent Contempt crash course:
For example in June of 2020 Rep Lieu proposed new legislation that could grant Congress the authority to fine an individual $100,000 for noncompliance of a lawful Congressional Subpoena— but that proposed law went to a committee to die on the vine. see H.Res.406 — 117th Congress (2021-2022)
Congress does have the “inherent contempt power”— but this has rarely been used and it requires the current Congress (117th) to establish rules 4 and procedures 5 - absent that contemplation then the Inherent Contempt power largely remains dormant. So if you see someone tweeting “remand them into custody” ←understand that person doesn’t have a single goddamn clue about what they are tweeting about. It’s embarrassing— mainly for them and the cult members that retweeted that disinformation
Inherent contempt is something Congress (especially in the 1800’s uses) to directly enforce contempt under its own “inherent” constitutional authority
You should understand that in the past like 150+ years ago this was Congress’ main tool to force compliance of lawful subpoenas, until they codified for both civil and criminal procedures
However Inherent Contempt was rendered dormant after new laws were enacted for both criminal and civil contempt statutes were passed, and those two avenues are in use into the twentieth century et seq.
Inherent Contempt proceedings, as history has proven:
House or Senate has its Sergeant-At-Arms, or deputy, take a person into custody for proceedings to be held in Congress.
As far as taking Bannon et al into custody… oh come on
Where pray tell would they hold these individuals?
Who would make the arrest? ← house Sgt at arms
Show me anywhere in the 117th Rules package that law makers established the rules governing their power of Inherent Contempt.
My point is - two of the four witness are in “active” negotiations with the Select Committee —again those of us in DC and know how DC (Congress) really work understand that the 117th Congress failed to establish policy and procedures for “inherent contempt of Congress”…moreover those fixated on the lack of compliance —come on — Biden waived executive privilege— explicitly for the National Archives —and that shouldn’t be lost on anyone. See my August article (embedded below this video)
“The president has determined an assertion of executive privilege isn’t warranted for the first set of documents from the Trump White House that have been provided to us by the National Archives,” press secretary Jen Psaki
And why is that a big deal - perhaps you should reread the Document Request Congress made concerning Jan6th…again the key point here is Biden waived executive privilege and this now green lights the National Archives to proceed with the lawful Congressional Production request -absent the 4 stooges compliance. I hope that makes sense; because sometimes I feel like I’m writing in pig Latin….
Happy Friday and I hope y’all have an excellent weekend…I’m going deep sea fishing over the weekend and it’s likely I won’t have access to the Internet 50+ miles away from the island…..Again I likely won’t be publishing articles over the course of the next few days/weeks but rest assured I’ll eventually return with a couple of receipts and spelling errors.
-Filey
See September 25, 2019 Testimony by GSA re: Landlord and Tenant: The Trump Administration's Oversight of the Trump International Hotel Lease STATEMENT OF MR. DAN MATHEWS https://www.gsa.gov/about-us/newsroom/congressional-testimony/landlord-and-tenant-the-trump-administrations-oversight-of-the-trump-international-hotel-lease
See January 16, 2019 GSA-OIG Report concerning Trump DC Hotel’s Lease and GSA Contract https://www.gsaig.gov/sites/default/files/ipa-reports/JE19-002%20OIG%20EVALUATION%20REPORT-GSA%27s%20Management%20%26%20Administration%20of%20OPO%20Building%20Lease_January%2016%202019_Redacted.pdf
See the nearly 1,000 pages of the Rules governing the 117th Congress
https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/CRPT-117hrpt125.pdf
See the Rules approved concerning Committees for the 117th Congress
https://www.congress.gov/117/cprt/HPRT44770/CPRT-117HPRT44770.pdf
Not too shabby for 10 months work and, as always, thank you for walking us through it.
Enjoy yourself!