Dem rep: Trump’s real estate deals violated Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) said early Thursday that she thinks President Trump’s real estate dealings violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which governs U.S. businesses’ dealings with foreign investors.
“I have thought for a very long time that the president, as a real estate developer, had violated what’s called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,” Speier said on CNN’s “New Day.”
“It is a requirement that anyone who is doing business with a foreign entity make sure that none of the money that comes in to a project has been laundered,” she added.
{mosads}Speier pointed to three Trump Organization properties that went bankrupt at a time when other nearby hotels were prospering as examples of possible money laundering.
“I’ve focused in on three [projects]: the Toronto project, the SoHo project, and the Panama project,” she added. “All Trump hotels, all of which went belly up at a time, particularly in the Toronto project, when not one other high-rise property was bankrupted. But the Trump property was.”
“I have thought for a very long time that the President, as a real estate developer, had violated what’s called the Foreign Corrupt Practices act,” says Rep. @JackieSpeier.
Speier says she’s focusing on 3 Trump hotel projects: Toronto, Soho and Panama https://t.co/vWHUBrac88 pic.twitter.com/H4m1QFtvNP
— New Day (@NewDay) February 7, 2019
The Trump Organization has also faced scrutiny since the president took office in 2017 for accepting business from foreign officials and businesses as well as GOP-friendly groups in the U.S., which critics argue violates the constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
A lawsuit brought by the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia is proceeding after a judge refused to dismiss it last March. The inspector general of the General Services Administration also found earlier this year that the agency ignored constitutional guidelines by allowing Trump to keep the lease on the Old Post Office Pavilion, where the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., is located.
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