NEW: @realdonaldtrump has spent $400M+ in his own cash on property since ‘06, defying normal real-estate practices. https://t.co/4ulKSCB5zV
— David Fahrenthold (@Fahrenthold) May 5, 2018
Be kinda nice if this scheduled post is outdated by the time it appears, but…
This may turn out to be the most important piece about Trump in a long time. Where he found hundreds of millions in cash, and why he’d take the risk of committing it in a decade of near-zero interest bank loans, are questions he will not want investigators to explore. https://t.co/HmehPy3zFj
— Barton Gellman (@bartongellman) May 6, 2018
… Trump’s vast outlay of cash, tracked through public records and totaled publicly here for the first time, provides a new window into the president’s private company, which discloses few details about its finances.
It shows that Trump had access to far more cash than previously known, despite his string of commercial bankruptcies and the Great Recession’s hammering of the real estate industry.
Why did the “King of Debt,” as he has called himself in interviews, turn away from that strategy, defying the real estate wisdom that it’s unwise to risk so much of one’s own money in a few projects?
And how did Trump — who had money tied up in golf courses and buildings — raise enough liquid assets to go on this cash buying spree?…
To total up Trump’s cash payments in real estate transactions, The Washington Post examined land records and corporate reports from six U.S. states, Ireland and the United Kingdom. These records show purchase prices for Trump’s properties, details about any mortgages and — in the United Kingdom and Ireland — the amount of cash Trump plowed into his clubs after he bought them. The Post provided the figures it used to the Trump Organization, which did not dispute them…
During the 2016 campaign, Trump continued to brag about how he’d mastered the art of spending other people’s cash.
“I do that all the time in business: It’s called other people’s money. There’s nothing like doing things with other people’s money because it takes the risk,” Trump told a campaign-trail audience in North Carolina in September 2016. “You get a good chunk of it, and it takes the risk.”
Trumpworld laundering Russian/Ukrainian money through US real estate contributes to unaffordable housing. Boom, there's your campaign ad for any Democrats still worried about how to message Russiagate to pocketbook voters.
— zeddy (@Zeddary) May 6, 2018
Important Read: Laundering Whose Dirty Dollars?Post + Comments (189)