Don Jr's Mongolian Sheep hunt

[struggle4progress]

By Lauren White and Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel
March 5, 2020

Donald Trump Jr.’s Mongolian trophy hunting trip cost taxpayers $17,704 in Secret Service charges alone, according to records obtained by CREW. The records show that $16,000 of that total went to Jandos Kontorbai Ahat’s company. Ahat arranged Don Jr.’s “very political” hunting permit and is also a member of the Mongolian president’s political party. His company is on the board of the Mongolian hunting and wildlife association.

The eight day trip was already controversial for many reasons: Don Jr. was retroactively awarded his permit to hunt the endangered argali sheep after killing it, he had a private meeting with Mongolia’s president that we still don’t know much about, and hunted alongside a major Republican donor. The Secret Service’s payment to Ahat’s company, Marmara International LLC, shows that taxpayer money directly funded Don Jr.’s political connection on the trip.

As a son of the president, Don Jr. is entitled to Secret Service protection and should be protected, but taxpayers deserve to know how much they are paying to facilitate his trophy hunting and interactions with major political donors and foreign leaders ...

In December, ProPublica reported on Don Jr.’s trip, noting that he traveled with five Secret Service bodyguards, the defense attache from the US embassy in Mongolia, and Republican political donor Kevin Small. After the hunt, Don Jr. met privately with Mongolian President Khaltmaagiin Battulga, and the Mongolian government retroactively gave Don Jr. a permit to kill the sheep ...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/don-jr-mongolian-sheep-hunt-cost-17k/

[struggle4progress]

1. 3000 Conflicts of interest

... During the impeachment proceedings into President Trump, 55 members of Congress made a combined 78 visits to Trump properties ...

Cabinet members have patronized Trump properties and attended events with special interests or wealthy political donors no fewer than 30 times.

Special interest groups, many that have business before the Trump administration, have hosted or sponsored 117 events at Trump properties since he took office. Political groups have held another 78 events at Trump properties ...

Foreign governments have granted President Trump’s businesses 65 trademarks while he’s been in office ...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/trump-accumulated-3000-conflicts-of-interest/

[struggle4progress]

2. Eric Trump's 2019 trip to Uruguay

February 27, 2020

Eric Trump visited a Trump property in development in Uruguay from January 8 to 9, 2019, a two-day business trip that cost taxpayers at least $80,786. CREW obtained records through the Freedom of Information Act today that add to the massive bill of Secret Service protection related to the Trump family’s management of the president’s business empire. The 2019 trip brings Eric Trump’s total up to at least $178,616 in taxpayer funds to work on development of the Trump Organization’s Punta Del Este property alone ...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/eric-trump-business-trip-urugay-80k/

[struggle4progress]

3. Trump used his tour of four Western states to yet again profit off of the presidency by staying

every night at his Las Vegas Trump International Hotel, on the taxpayers’ dime. When asked why he didn’t find other accommodations in California, Arizona and Colorado, Trump claimed that “the schedule is set by the Secret Service. We do what they want us to.”

CREW is requesting documents from the Secret Service to see whether the Secret Service actually made the request that Trump stay at his own hotel, which had him boomeranging between states and required an extra $1.1 million in taxpayer funded Air Force One trips.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Trump has claimed a decision to spend taxpayer dollars at one of his properties was because of a Secret Service request. In the fall of last year, Trump’s claim that the the Secret Service preferred to host the G-7 Summit at his own struggling Doral golf resort was contradicted by Secret Service documents CREW obtained that showed the Secret Service only added Doral after pressure from the administration ...

CREW REQUESTS SECRET SERVICE RECORDS ON TRUMP’S STAY AT HIS OWN LAS VEGAS HOTEL
February 24, 2020

[struggle4progress]

4. Administration's agenda benefits Donald Trump

By Cameron Hendrickson and Carisa McLaney
February 12, 2020

... his failed attempt to host this year’s G-7 conference at his Doral resort was perhaps the most conspicuous and audacious example of his administration taking an official action to benefit a business he still owns and profits from ...

... in 2018 .. the Trump Organization sold real estate estimated to be worth more than $35 million. More than half of what he netted in those sales reportedly came from a federally subsidized housing complex in Brooklyn — the sale of which Trump’s own Department of Housing and Urban Development had to approve. President Trump personally brought in an estimated $20 million as a result of the decision in his favor ...

Around the time of the OSHA repeal, Trump’s EPA reversed a ban on a pesticide that experts have linked to serious brain development problems in children. The pesticide, chlorpyrifos, is known for its use in farming, but it is also routinely used on golf courses, of which the president owns more than a dozen ...

Last spring, while Trump was threatening to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border, the Departments of Labor and Homeland Security nearly doubled the number of H-2B temporary worker visas they planned to grant that year. The visas allow foreign workers to legally enter the United States to work at businesses that regularly employ seasonal workers, like the hotels and resorts that make up a large portion of President Trump’s financial portfolio. The Trump Organization has requested 1,692 foreign work visas between 2001 and 2018 for a number of his businesses, including Mar-a-Lago, the Trump National Golf Club in New York, and Trump Vineyard Estates ...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/trump-administrations-agenda-benefits-donald-trump/

[struggle4progress]

5. Trump's hotel charged inaugural 5-8X normal rates

By Linnaea Honl-Stuenkel and Walker Davis
January 24, 2020

The Trump Organization charged the Trump inaugural committee an abnormally high rate for blocks of rooms and suites in the hotel around the inauguration, netting Trump’s business almost six times the current average cost for the most basic rooms available in the hotel and eight times the current average cost for higher tiered rooms, according to documents released in a lawsuit this week. While it’s typical for Washington area hotels to charge guests more around a presidential inauguration, in this case, the exorbitant prices paid by the incoming president’s political supporters went into that president’s pocket.

On Wednesday, DC Attorney General Karl Racine sued the Trump Inaugural Committee for violating its nonprofit status by paying more than market rate (over $1 million) to use a ballroom at Trump’s DC hotel. Documents included with the suit revealed more than was previously known about the costs at the Trump Hotel around his inauguration.

Reserving rooms in a block would typically mean that the costs would be reduced, but emails released with the suit show that rates were actually many times more expensive than the current normal rate. The most basic rooms available at Trump’s hotel cost the inaugural committee $2,000 per night per room, while the current cost for the least expensive room is $340, according to the hotel’s website. Not only that, but the rooms were only available if booked for 5 nights or more, which meant that the hotel was guaranteed at least $10,000 in revenue from guests willing to book one ...

https://www.citizensforethics.org/trump-inauguration-rate-spike/

[Brainfodder]

7. Agreeing to pay the 8x too much is also mighty mighty fishy?

Who not already bent among us would not scream HELL NO! @2,000 USD for 1 basic hotel room per night?

[struggle4progress]

6. Eric Trump's trip to his Dad's European resorts

Russ Choma
MARCH 3, 2020

... the Trump Organization is offering members of its New Jersey golf club a chance to travel to Scotland or Ireland with Eric Trump this summer—likely at great expense to taxpayers who will foot the bill for Secret Service protection for the president’s son.

According to an email sent to members of Donald Trump’s Bedminster golf club, Eric Trump will lead at least two three-day golfing outings this summer for club members. The price for each trip—one to Trump’s Doonbeg golf resort in Ireland and one to his Turnberry course in Scotland—will cost members $6,500 apiece, not including airfare. That’s a lot more than people typically pay to play at the Trump courses. Perry Golf, a golf tour operator which organizes golfing trips in Ireland and Scotland, is currently advertising 10-day trips to both Doonbeg and Turnberry, as well as a number of other courses, for $9,895 — a price that includes airfare and seven more days of travel ...

... The administration has not released the exact cost of providing the Trump boys with Secret Service protection while they try to goose their father’s golf business in the British Isles. But we know the costs for similar trips, and they’re exorbitant ...

... A 2017 trip to Uruguay by Eric Trump cost taxpayers more than $97,000 to cover hotel rooms for Secret Service and embassy staff. In 2017, Eric and his brother Donald Trump Jr. traveled to Dubai and the Dominican Republic to visit properties branded with their father’s name, running up a tab of $230,000 for Secret Service rooms ...

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/03/taxpayers-are-likely-on-the-hook-for-eric-trumps-trip-to-his-dads-european-resorts/

[42bambi]

8. But, but, but ... what about Hunter Biden?