President Trump's real estate sales have gotten much more secretive since he won the Republican nomination in 2016, with the majority of buyers now using limited liability companies to hide to-be owners' names, a USA Today investigation has found. In the two years before Trump was nominated, just 4 percent of buyers used shell companies to make purchases; in the year that followed, and throughout Trump's first year in office, that rate jumped all the way to 70 percent.
Attorney Bobby Burchfield, who was appointed to review the ethics of new Trump real estate deals, told USA Today that "if someone wants to do business with the Trump entities in the form of an LLC, we look behind the LLC to see who the owner of it is and where the funding is coming from. If we can't determine that, we won't sign off on it." Ross Delston, an attorney who specializes in anti-money laundering, argued in return: “From what we know of the Trump Organization's past real estate deals is they never see deals they don't like."
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
'Good riddance to the televised presidential debate'Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Caitlin Clark the No. 1 pick in bullish WNBA DraftSpeed Read As expected, she went to the Indiana Fever
-
Today's political cartoons - April 16, 2024Cartoons Tuesday's cartoons - sleepyhead, little people, and more
-
Empty-nest boomers aren't selling their big homesSpeed Read Most Americans 60 and older do not intend to move, according to a recent survey
-
Brazil accuses Musk of 'disinformation campaign'Speed Read A Brazilian Supreme Court judge has opened an inquiry into Elon Musk and X
-
Disney board fends off Peltz infiltration bidSpeed Read Disney CEO Bob Iger has defeated activist investor Nelson Peltz in a contentious proxy battle
-
Disney and DeSantis reach detenteSpeed Read The Florida governor and Disney settle a yearslong litigation over control of the tourism district
-
Visa and Mastercard agree to lower swipe feesSpeed Read The companies will cap the fees they charge businesses when customers use their credit cards
-
Reddit IPO values social media site at $6.4 billionSpeed Read The company makes its public debut on the New York Stock Exchange
-
Housing costs: the root of US economic malaise?speed read Many voters are troubled by the housing affordability crisis
-
Feds cap credit card late fees at $8speed read The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau finalized a rule to save households an estimated $10 billion a year
