Donald Trump owed a South Korean business partner $20 million as a candidate for office and newly elected president and left it off his financial disclosures. Let’s talk about that.🧵
On Sunday, Forbes revealed that Trump Org records obtained by the NY AG show a previously unreported liability of $19.8 million to Daewoo, a South Korean conglomerate with historical ties to North Korea. The debt didn’t show up on any of Trump’s public financial disclosures.
Rather than disclose the debt, Trump paid it off as quietly and quickly as possible during his first few months in office, leaving the public in the dark about a serious conflict of interest.
forbes.com
forbes.com
Your first question might be “how is that legal?” It’s complicated—officials have to list personal loans on their financial disclosures, but they only have to include loans to their business if they’re personally liable.
Here’s what we know: Trump has never gone out of his way to follow the spirit of the law or be transparent in his finances. Since he became a candidate in 2015, he’s been credibly accused of 56 crimes and was the only president elected since Nixon to not release his tax returns.
Recently, the House Ways and Means Committee obtained Trump’s tax returns--after years of fighting and intervention by the Supreme Court. The public has yet to see them (and given that he spent years fighting to keep them hidden, we can only imagine what he’s trying to conceal).
This debt to a South Korean company is also far from Trump’s only business tie to a foreign company or government.
We sued Trump over his violation of the emoluments clauses on his first day in the Oval Office. citizensforethics.org
We sued Trump over his violation of the emoluments clauses on his first day in the Oval Office. citizensforethics.org
Over Trump’s term, we tracked 150 officials from 77 foreign governments that visited a Trump property, and 13 foreign government-sponsored events were held at Trump properties.
citizensforethics.org
citizensforethics.org
Although Trump promised “no new foreign business” while he was in office, existing deals continued--such as Trump-branded condos in India, where Don Jr. traveled in 2018 to court buyers.
citizensforethics.org
citizensforethics.org
Since Trump left office, his business ties to Saudi Arabia in particular have strengthened. The Saudi government-backed LIV Golf Tour held an event at Trump’s Bedminster golf course earlier this year. And he just signed a brand new business deal in Oman with a Saudi firm.
Clearly, our current ethics laws aren’t enough to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure transparency from candidates or presidents. Congress has a chance to change this before the next presidential election, and they owe it to the American people to do it.
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