Trump wanted to stay in power ‘at all costs’ because he was making ‘millions’ off being president, Jan 6 committee member says

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Donald Trump wanted to stay in power “at all costs” because he was making “millions” off of being president, a January 6 committee member has said.

Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin appeared on Washington Journal on C-SPAN on Wednesday, saying that “to my mind, Donald Trump was really engaged in a lot of for-profit money-making activities in his administration, which would also explain his determination to stay in office at all costs”.

“The founders of the Constitution were determined to prevent that from happening”, he added. “That's why we have the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which says that no president and no member of the federal government can accept presents, emoluments, which means payments, offices, or titles from foreign governments. And yet we know that Donald Trump was engaged in bringing millions of dollars into his hotels and golf courses and other commercial licensing deals and so on from foreign governments.”

The Independent has reached out to a spokesperson for Mr Trump for comment.

The House Committee on Oversight and Reform released a report in October last year that said that Mr Trump’s DC hotel was paid millions from foreign governments while still managing to lose $71m during Mr Trump’s term in office.

The panel published hundreds of pages of financial documents provided by the General Services Administration.

The agency leased the property, which is federally owned, to Mr Trump’s company between 2013 and May of this year, when the lease was sold to an investor group based in Miami.

As a condition of the lease, Mr Trump had to provide the financial documents, The Washington Post reported.

Democratic Representatives Carolyn Maloney of New York and Gerald Connelly of Virginia said last year that the documents revealed that Mr Trump was paid around $3.7m by foreign governments and also received “preferential treatment” from Deutsche Bank.

The bank previously loaned Mr Trump $170m to renovate the hotel.

The two Congressional Democrats said at the time that the revelations “raise new and troubling questions about former President Trump’s lease with GSA and the agency’s ability to manage the former President’s conflicts of interest during his term in office when he was effectively on both sides of the contract, as landlord and tenant”.

The Trump Organization said at the time that the claims were “irresponsible and unequivocally false”.

“We have been great custodians of this iconic building, continue to have a great relationship with the GSA and are in full compliance with our leasehold obligations,” spokeswoman Kimberly Benza said, according to The Post. “Simply stated, this report is nothing more than continued political harassment in a desperate attempt to mislead the American public and defame Trump in pursuit of an agenda.”

“The Committee’s letter makes several inaccurate statements regarding Deutsche Bank and its loan agreement,” Dan Hunter, a spokesman for the bank, added to the paper.