Maryland, DC prosecutors subpoena documents from organization operating Trump hotel

Prosecutors in Maryland and Washington, D.C., have subpoenaed financial documents from the organization that operates President Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. and a number of other Trump properties worldwide. 

Prosecutors are seeking documents from the DJT Holdings LLC, which owns Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., as part of their investigation into whether Trump has violated the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution. 

{mosads}Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh and D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine are leading the investigation into whether Trump has violated the clause by accepting payments from foreign governments through his D.C. hotel.

“We are confident that at the end of discovery we will be able to prove our case that President Trump is violating the constitution’s emoluments clauses, America’s first anti-corruption laws,” Frosh told the Times.

A U.S. District Judge in March limited the scope of the emoluments clause lawsuit to alleged constitutional violations by Trump involving operations of the Trump Organization within D.C. only.

DJT Holdings LLC also owns Trump Turnberry and Trump Aberdeen in Scotland. The Times of London reported Monday that the subpoenaed documents may shed light on the finances of those golf courses, which have reportedly been of interest to lawmakers and special counsel Robert Mueller.

The subpoena appears to be part of a group of subpoenas filed in December related to the case.

The president is facing a number of emoluments lawsuits focused on both his presidency and on him as an individual. He and his attorneys have tried, with mixed success, to have the lawsuits dismissed.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that Deutsche Bank declined to give Trump a loan in 2016 for the Trump Turnberry, raising questions about the financing behind Trump’s Scotland golf courses.

Trump Organization spokeswoman Amanda Miller told The New York Times that the organization “bought Trump Turnberry without any financing and put tens of millions of dollars of our own money into the renovation.”

Before taking office, Trump transferred his assets to a trust and handed control to his adult sons.

Lawmakers investigating ties between the Trump campaign and Russia have also raised questions about the source of funding for DJT Holdings and whether it may have come from foreign entities. Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly subpoenaed records of Trump’s transactions with Deutsche Bank in his Russia investigation. 

At a House Intelligence Committee hearing in 2017, opposition research firm Fusion GPS leader Glenn Simpson told lawmakers the lack of information about the funding for the golf courses was “concerning,” according to the Times of London.

Simpson said that the accounts in question “don’t on their face show Russian involvement, but what they do show is enormous amounts of capital flowing into these projects from unknown sources.”

Critics have also accused Trump of using visits as president to the golf courses to promote his business, amid several subsequent years of reported losses.

CORRECTION: This story was corrected at 4:41 p.m. The scope of the emoluments clause lawsuit is limited to Trump properties in Washington, D.C. And earlier version of this story included incorrect information.