Contact Your Financial Adviser Money Making MC
28
April 2017
 |
At a press conference before he took office,
then-President-elect Donald Trump said he had signed paperwork "turning
over complete and total control" of his business empire to his sons. His
lawyer said the more than 400 businesses would be placed in a trust by
Inauguration Day.
Now, nearly 100 days later, he's nearly
fulfilled this promise.
President Trump and his daughter, Ivanka, are
closing in on removing their names from the one business where they are still
listed as managers on state filings.
That business is the Trump SoHo, a hotel and
condo tower in lower Manhattan. The company only filed an application in March
to remove Trump and Ivanka as managers listed on state liquor licenses. The
application is still pending New York's approval.
New York requires companies to register
management changes within 10 days. Bill Crowley, a spokesman for the New York
State Liquor Authority, said the two-month delay in filing is a violation, but
a "common error made by corporations that does not usually result in
prosecution" provided state officials receive new documentation
"within a reasonable amount of time."
The White House referred all questions about
Trump SoHo to the Trump Organization. In a statement, the Trump Organization
said "all of the necessary paperwork to remove President Trump from the
licenses associated with his businesses was validly filed with the appropriate
agencies months ago. Unfortunately, the approval process does not always happen
overnight."
We first revealed Trump's failure to transfer control of his businesses on Inauguration Day.
Following our story, Trump did start filing the necessary paperwork with states. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Former White House ethics attorneys, both
Republican and Democrat, have said even Trump's completed transfer of management
duties is far from enough. They say that the president needs to either sell his
companies or put them in a blind trust run by an outsider.
"It really doesn't matter if he's listed
on these documents or not. It's all part of his efforts to distance himself,
but he hasn't sold anything," said Richard M. Painter, a former White
House ethics counsel under President George W. Bush and a critic of Trump's
trust arrangement. "From an ethics standpoint, it's all about ownership
and he's not willing to part with anything."
The Trump SoHo, which is right next to ProPublica's offices, has wrestled
with lawsuits and financial troubles ever since Trump announced plans to build
it in the 2006 season finale of his reality TV show, "The
Apprentice."
The project opened shortly before the
financial crisis, leading to sluggish sales. One of Trump's partners in the
deal, Felix Sater of the Bayrock Group, was a convicted felon and later a
confidential informant who had been imprisoned for stabbing a man in a bar fight.
In 2010, Bayrock, another partner, the Sapir Organization and the Trump
Organization settled a fraud lawsuit in which condo buyers claimed the
sponsors inflated condo sales numbers.
Under Sater and the Sapir Organization (whose
founder, Tamir Sapir, died in 2014), the project went into foreclosure.
The Los Angeles-based CIM Group then bought a controlling stake. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Trump is no longer a part owner of the condo
tower. But the owners still contract with the Trump Organization to manage and
market the property. Trump gets 5.75 percent of Trump SoHo's annually operating
revenues for that work.
In 2015, according to the federal financial
disclosure reports, Trump made $3 million off of the deal. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Five CIM representatives are currently also
listed on the liquor license as principals along with President Trump, Donald
Jr. and Ivanka.The Total Investment
& Insurance Solutions
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