Thread by @Fly_Sistah

Trump discovered a lucrative new revenue stream: people who wanted something from the president. An investigation by NYT found over 200 companies, special-interest groups & foreign governments that patronized his properties while reaping benefits from him. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

"Individuals, groups and companies that patronized a Trump property and had business before the administration are represented by dots. Arrows show the flow of money to Mr. Trump by way of his properties."

"Just 60 customers with interests at stake before the Trump administration brought his family business nearly $12 million during the first two years of his presidency, The Times found. Almost all saw their interests advanced, in some fashion, by Mr. Trump or his government."

"More than 70 advocacy groups, businesses and foreign governments threw events at the president’s properties that were previously held elsewhere, or created new events that drove dollars into Mr. Trump’s business." nytimes.com/interactive/20…

"Trump attended 34 fund-raisers held at his hotels and resorts, events that brought his properties another $3 million in revenue. Sometimes, he lined up his donors to ask what they needed from the government." nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Trump sometimes let managers know he was being briefed on their performance. “Eric tells me you’re doing a great job,” he would say, according to current and former administration officials. Eric sometimes told his father about specific groups that had booked events at Mar-a-Lago

Trump surveyed his business empire from the White House, & occasionally familiarized himself with details from club membership lists, according to two people with knowledge of the activity.
Cohen said Trump micromanaged & didn't let his kids run anything. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Mob boss shaking people down:
Brian Ballard, a Florida lobbyist joined Mar-a-Lago because he had to. "But according to two people Mr. Ballard later told of his decision, there was another explanation: The president’s wishes had been made clear to him — and he needed to ante up."

AAR Corp., had wrested from a rival a $10 billion contract to service State Department aircraft. In addition to AAR Corp., the Times analysis showed that more than 100 other companies that wanted something from the federal government also patronized Trump properties.

Elliot Broidy, a California businessman who raised millions for the Trump campaign, joined Mar-a-Lago after the election. He told an associate that he viewed it as a way to increase access to the president. He was charged with conspiring to improperly lobby the administration

Anthony Pratt began showering Mr. Trump with praise on Twitter & elsewhere. His wife Claudine Revere donated $1 million to the inauguration, which Pratt attended. In spring 2017 Pratt joined Mar-a-Lago & announced thereafter plans to invest $2 billion to create manufacturing jobs

Pratt bought privileged access. In fall 2019, the White House invited him to a state dinner for the Australian prime minister. Two days later, Mr. Trump appeared at the grand opening of Mr. Pratt’s plant in Ohio, a mingling of the men’s political and business interests.

Trump was at Mar-a-Lago when Pratt had dinner there with a reporter from The Australian Financial Review, waxing about the president’s 2017 corporate tax cut. The legislation had accelerated write-offs for capital expenditures and helped boost Pratt’s wealth by about $2 billion

“The key thing about being a member,” Pratt told an audience “is that I see President Trump two or three times a year, and each time I would tell him about our manufacturing business.”

“My early support resonated with Trump, who takes things very personally & he remembers it.”

Brian Ballard dismissed the idea that his Mar-a-Lago membership or patronage of Trump properties played a role in making him “the most powerful lobbyist in Trump’s Washington,” as Politico called him in 2018. At least 2 companies associated with Mar-a-Lago hired Ballard

Ballard client GEO gave $250,000 to Trump's inauguration & wanted Trump to overturn a policy limiting the use of commercial prison beds. That fall, GEO moved its annual leadership conference to Doral. The company’s founder, George C. Zoley, also frequented the Trump DC hotel

Zoley told a business associate he viewed the administration as “transactional.” Gesturing at the hotel lobby, he said it helped to be seen there, according to the associate, who requested anonymity because the conversation was private. A GEO spokesman didn't respond to questions

Soon after GEO hired Ballard, the DOJ rescinded the limit on private prisons. GEO's business with the federal government has soared: It received about $900 million from contracts in the most recent fiscal year, compared with about $500 million in the last year under Obama

Wow! Shalabh Kumar donated over $1 million & organized a group to turn out Hindu voters. Kumar wanted Trump to extend permanent residency to adult children of highly skilled workers. He showed Trump a draft tweet. Trump kept it. A Trump tweet arrived as support for the cause.

Franklin Haney needed billions of dollars from Trump. Haney struck a deal to buy an unfinished nuclear plant in Alabama. To complete it, he was seeking close to $5 billion in loans from the Energy Department. After Trump was elected, he contributed $1 million to his inauguration

Haney hired Michael Cohen, the president’s fixer, to a $150,000-per-month contract. Cohen was promised not only a $10 million success fee but also a share of the project’s future profits if Mr. Haney secured full financing. Cohen’s fee & profit share hadn't been reported.

Haney returned to Mar-a-Lago during the April round table, after Cohen signaled he would cooperate with investigators. Haney told a Memphis newspaper that Trump played no role in his hiring of Cohen, & said he had severed the contract after Cohen’s legal troubles mounted.

Haney did not give up trying to get $5 billion, however. He merely switched horses, hiring the Texas-based lobbyist Roy Bailey, who had served as a top fund-raising official for the president’s inauguration and later America First, the Trump super PAC. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Federal regulators approved Haney’s transfer of construction permits from the nuclear plant’s previous owner. A spokeswoman for the Energy Department declined to comment on Mr. Bailey’s discussions with officials there or on the status of Mr. Haney’s loan application.

The National Automobile Dealers Association spent nearly $80,000 while using the DC hotel as a base for meetings with policymakers... (The organization said the site was “chosen after our meeting planners negotiated contracts that best met our needs.”)

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, an aviation school with campuses in Florida and Arizona, spent more than $75,000 as it was seeking approval of a bill that would remove a federal restriction on land owned by the university. It was signed by Trump in March 2019.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation paid the Trump hotel at least $62,000 in 2018. In 2019 the foundation co-hosted an annual conference that was previously held at a nearby Grand Hyatt. Trump overturned a longtime federal ban on overseas sale of silencers to private owners

In early 2018, according to Facebook posts, John Willding, a lawyer at Barnes & Thornburg with business before the government, began hosting a monthly mixer that came to be known as Trump First Tuesdays. DC Hotel staff would reserve a corner of the room with a velvet rope.

Almost from the outset of the Trump presidency, the Washington hotel had been a hub of religious gatherings, fund-raisers and tours — events that converted Mr. Trump’s most loyal voters into some of his most reliable customers.

Patrons ranged from small outfits like Summit Ministries, a Colorado religious education group that paid $180,834 to host a donor conference in 2018 ...... to major organizations like the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, now run by Franklin Graham.

It paid Mr. Trump’s hotel $397,602 in 2017, the tax records show, holding a closing banquet there during its World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians to accommodate an overflow crowd.

When the new Museum of the Bible was preparing to open in Washington that fall, Mike Ingram, a wealthy Arizona developer and Trump donor, invited a selection of “conservative Christian couples” to a tour and dinner at the institution, with attendees overnighting at the hotel.

The museum threw a fund-raiser at the hotel and held its grand opening gala there, too, spending $278,290 in all. The gala drew administration officials, Eric Trump and prominent evangelicals with close ties to his father, including Jerry Falwell Jr. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

The museum spent another $252,334 on rooms & event space in 2018 in part to avert a potential P.R. fiasco. That fall the museum canceled an event planned at its own building by a group that has railed against Trump’s perceived enemies, including the “deep state” & “fake news”

Like Trump’s corporate customers, religious groups have also won access & an array of favorable policies from Trump, including appointments of anti-abortion judges & measures exempting religious groups from anti-discrimination laws. They are focused on Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

The Christian Broadcasting Network said it had paid Mar-a-Lago about $170,000 for events held in 2018 and 2019 to raise money for its charitable group, Orphan’s Promise. “The access has been phenomenal,” CBN’s chief political correspondent, David Brody, told The Times in 2018.

A Romanian politician named Liviu Dragnea who was about to stand trial on corruption charges stopped by the Trump hotel for dinner and a drink. Trump & his entourage passed & Dragnea got a photo with Trump that he misleadingly portrayed as an intimate dinner.

Representatives of at least 33 foreign countries have passed through the DC hotel. “The fact that they could get a meeting, have a handshake and take a picture that gets distributed far and wide back home — that is gold to them,” “They’ll almost do anything to achieve that.”

Some embassies moved their annual galas or independence commemorations to the hotel. “Since several other embassies have also held their national day celebrations at the Trump hotel which were well attended"

When the prime minister of the Serbian enclave in Bosnia, Zeljka Cvijanovic, stopped at the hotel & met Kellyanne Conway & Sarah Huckabee Sanders, she issued a news release almost suggestive of a state function.

The Times identified more than 20 foreign officials, politicians and businesses or groups closely affiliated with governments abroad that held events at his properties or paid for rooms there.

FLC Group a Vietnamese conglomerate w a commercial airline subsidiary, hosted a conference at the DC hotel in 2018. 8 months later, the FAA certified Vietnamese airlines to fly to the US. Trump attended a ceremony in Hanoi celebrating an FLC deal to buy $3 billion Boeing aircraft

Elliot Broidy wrote to the Angolan defense minister discussing plans for a visit to Mar-a-Lago while also seeking payments from the nation’s government to his defense firm, Circinus. Broidy organized a reception at the DC hotel featuring cocktails, dinner & a “cigar social hour”

all honoring the Romanian defense minister and a top general who oversaw the kinds of programs Broidy was eyeing for business. Broidy and his team invited U.S. officials, including the ambassador to Romania and Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary. He also invited Ryan Zinke, the

interior secretary, and “many important VIPs,” according to emails obtained through a public-records request. Ross did not attend, but Zinke & the ambassador did. About 5 months later, Broidy’s company signed a cooperation agreement with Romania’s state-owned defense firm

laying the groundwork for contracts worth as much as $200 million. The contracts never were awarded. Dragnea was convicted of abuse of office & sent to prison, & Broidy’s arrangements with foreign clients came under federal investigation.

On Thursday, it was revealed Broidy is charged with a single count of conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws in a case unrelated to Romania. Prosecutors in that case, however, did draw a link to a Trump property, citing text messages in which Broidy sought to arrange a golf

outing for a foreign politician with Mr. Trump at his Bedminster club or in the Washington area. nytimes.com/interactive/20…

Madhavan Padmakumar spent $10,000 to help throw a Mar-a-Lago birthday party for someone he had never met. Because Mar-a-Lago was closed due to covid 19, Padmakumar’s $10,000 went to a different event that weekend: a birthday party for Kimberly Guilfoyle, girlfriend of Donald Jr.

and the campaign official in charge of the retreat. The party cost $50,000, according to two people familiar with the planning. Mr. Padmakumar’s donation got him a last-minute invite to the bash and his name announced as a sponsor.

Trump was at the party. When asked, they claimed some of the guests may have been contributors, but they were also her friends, even if they had only just met her. When Jr. toasted his girlfriend, he joked that he would be following up with a solicitation, calling their guests

Donor, member, old friend, new friend. In the tangle of Trump’s swamp, it could be hard to tell the difference. Between the donor retreat and Guilfoyle’s party, the weekend brought over $400,000 to Mar-a-Lago.
Mr. Trump got paid. nytimes.com/interactive/20…