Former President Donald Trump reported making more than $1.6 billion in outside revenue and income during his four years in office, according to a review of his financial disclosures by Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The report by CREW notes that “While Trump publicly took credit for donating his taxpayer-funded salary, that ended up being less than 0.1% of the revenue and income he disclosed during his presidency. Far from being a sacrifice, the donation was merely a fig leaf to cover up four years of brazen corruption.”
“Despite seeing a major dropoff in hospitality-related revenue in 2020 due to the pandemic, in total Trump disclosed at least $1,613,583,013 in revenue from the Trump Organization and other outside income,” the report says.
The bulk of his Trump Organization revenue came “from the marquee properties that he often visited during his presidency,” CREW revealed. “The Trump Hotel in DC, his Mar-a-Lago resort and his golf courses Doral, Bedminister and Trump National Washington brought in a combined $620,709,659 over the last four years. He paid a combined 399 visits to these properties as president.”
“With the pandemic shuttering hotels and golf courses, the Trump Hotel dropped from $40 million a year in revenue to $15 million from 2020 through the end of Trump’s presidency and Doral, which saw regular revenue in the mid-$70 millions, only tallied $44 million. Mar-a-Lago, however, saw a slight uptick to $24 million, as the president continued to visit during the pandemic. The Virginia-based Trump National Washington, which the president spent many weekends at during the pandemic, did not see a dropoff from the previous three years.”
Maybe the most notable foreign properties in Trump’s portfolio are his three European golf courses—Turnberry and Aberdeen in Scotland and Doonbeg in Ireland—which the famously debt-laden developer bought in surprising cash deals and which have hemorrhaged money every year he has owned them. But while the courses have lost money, Trump still disclosed $138,726,106 in revenue from them over the last four years, this despite revenue dropping by nearly two-thirds in 2020.
The report makes the argument that “Trump needed the presidency to keep his struggling business empire above water and the profits flowing into his pockets.”
“When Trump failed to separate himself from his businesses—and in fact used the presidency to increase his business earnings—he made it clear that his top priority was his personal profits. In that regard, the Trump administration was a ringing success.”
