Trump's financial report shows earnings and losses but misses tax return details
Donald Trump’s 2018 financial disclosure report was released on Thursday by the Office of Government Ethics, shedding light on the president’s earnings and losses in the second year of his presidency.
The form, which is required to be filed annually, offered a rare glimpse into the president’s sprawling finances and showed mixed results for his businesses.
According to the report, Mar-a-Lago, the Florida resort, which Trump visits a lot during the winter, incurred a drop in income by 10% when compared with the previous year.
The filing, which spanned 88 pages, also showed Trump obtained a new 30-year mortgage in 2018 for a property he owned in West Palm Beach near his Mar-a-Lago estate. The eight-bedroom house is listed as being available for rent for about $81,000 a month.
The disclosure comes as Trump continues to draw scrutiny for his refusal to release his tax returns, despite an effort by Democrats in Congress to obtain them. Trump broke with a 40-year precedent in 2016 by becoming the first major-party presidential nominee in that time not to share his tax returns.
Related: House Democrats subpoena six years of Trump tax returns
Whereas the president’s tax returns would offer a clearer picture of how much money he is personally bringing in, the disclosures released on Thursday instead offer a glimpse of the number of properties he and his businesses own.
Revenues at other Trump-owned properties, such as his Doral golf resort in Florida and another golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, rose slightly from 2017.
The Washington-based Trump International Hotel also held steady, reporting $40.84m in revenues last year, a slight increase from 2017.
Trump’s involvement with his eponymous DC hotel has been the subject of legal challenges due to the heavy presence of foreign officials who stay there while traveling to the nation’s capital.
Nearly 200 members of Congress – all of them Democrats – filed a lawsuit against Trump, arguing he is violating the emoluments clause of the US constitution by accepting financial benefits from foreign governments.
Last month, a federal district judge ruled in favor of allowing the case to proceed to the evidence-gathering phase. The justice department moved this week to appeal the decision and halt all proceedings, arguing they placed an undue burden on the president.
Trump’s complex web of finances has been the next major investigative front for Democrats on Capitol Hill, who since assuming the House majority in January have subpoenaed dozens of witnesses and documents.
Democrats have said more transparency around Trumps finances would better illustrate if he holds any conflicts of interest as he considers legislation or other decisions, as well as if he is subject to foreign influence.
