Thread by @Meg_Cramer

Hi! I’m Meg, a senior producer on Trump, Inc. I co-reported our story today about the Trumps lying to push their deals around the world. There’s something I want to flag:

The remarkable number of fees for Trump baked into one of his deals: Panama.
features.propublica.org/trump-inc-podc…

Trump’s Panama agreement stipulated:
a $1m licensing fee
$2.2m for arranging financing
at least a 4% cut of unit sales
17.5% of hotel room fees, including the mini-bar, internet service, bathrobes
4% of hotel revenue for management

Overall, Trump made about $30-55M off the Panama project — a project that *went bankrupt* and where many investors & buyers lost money. How did he do that? By earning fees that have nothing to do with the long-term success of the building.

The strategy reminded me of something — specifically the ways Trump and his siblings took money out of their dad’s real estate empire, as the NYT revealed nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Fred Trump and his employees managed his buildings and made millions, and siphoned off money to his kids, the Times reported. It was wealth transfer by a thousand cuts.

For example: Donald Trump took home laundry revenue from his dad’s buildings. In one case he got the money tenants paid to rent air-conditioners.

(A lawyer for Trump called the Times’ reporting false and defamatory.)

After his dad died, Donald Trump and his siblings sold off most of his dad’s buildings. Around this time, Donald pivoted to a new business model: Licensing the Trump name.

Instead of siphoning money from his dad’s profits, Trump — and his company — siphoned money out of other people’s buildings through fees baked into license agreements. Like 17.5% from the mini-bar, etc. in Panama.

When the Trumps overstated sales numbers and exaggerated their role, they weren’t just helping themselves, they were helping *developers* by misleading buyers about the viability of the building.

A few examples from our story:

In contrast to Trump Org claims that they were merely lending their name, the Trumps were doing far more. We sent Trump Org a detailed list of questions about our investigation. We didn’t hear back from them, or from the White House.

If you haven’t already, do listen to the Trump, Inc. episode about this story
wnycstudios.org/story/trump-in…

And sign up for our newsletter to find out about new reporting
nypublicradio.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=41…

And: There’s been a lot of great reporting on Trump’s developer partners around the world.

Like the Reuters/NBC News investigation in Panama: reuters.com/investigates/s…

There’s @anjucomet’s investigation into Trump partners in India: wnycstudios.org/story/trump-in…

And Univision’s reporting on the Trump project in Baja: univision.com/univision-news…

And re-upping @adamdavidson on Trump Tower Baku because it can’t be linked to enough: newyorker.com/magazine/2017/…

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