Critics say the payments could violate the constitutional prohibition on accepting funds from foreign governments.
The report is one of the most comprehensive reviews of the former president’s business dealings with foreign governments during his tenure.
Democrats emphasized the total is likely larger.
They also lambasted Republican leadership, who they claim released Trump’s accounting firm Mazars from turning over documents four months after courts compelled it to comply with a congressional subpoena following a years-long legal battle.
“Critically, even this subset of documents reveals a stunning web of millions of dollars in payments made by foreign governments and their agents directly to Trump-owned businesses, while President Trump was in the White House,” Democrats wrote in their report.
“By pocketing foreign states’ payments, President Trump repeatedly placed his personal financial interest and the interests of foreign wealth and power above the public interest, resulting in precisely the split loyalty between foreign power and the American people that the Framers sought to avoid.”
Around $5.6 million of the total foreign payments came from Chinese entities, which primarily patronized Trump properties in Washington and Las Vegas and Trump Tower in New York.
The report comes amid GOP efforts to highlight business between relatives of President Biden, primarily his son Hunter, and foreign governments, including China.
While Hunter Biden conducted business with companies and investors in China, the report found Trump’s business ledgers included income from Chinese government entities including the country’s embassy in the U.S. and the Chinese state-affiliated Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC).
Republicans on the House Oversight Committee dismissed the report as part of Democrats’ “obsession” with the former president.
“Former President Trump has legitimate businesses but the Bidens do not. The Bidens and their associates made over $24 million by cashing in on the Biden name in China, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Romania. No goods or services were provided other than access to Joe Biden and the Biden network,” said Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) in a statement.
The Hill’s Rebecca Beitsch has more here.
