GRIFTER IN CHIEF

Trump’s Scottish and Irish golf resorts spur a new round of scrutiny on his businesses

A watchdog group wants New York prosecutors to investigate whether Trump filed false information on his annual financial disclosures.


Donald Trump arrives at Trump International Golf Links on June 25, 2016 in Aberdeen, Scotland. | Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images

By ANITA KUMAR
08/11/2020 

President Donald Trump appears to have inflated the value of his three golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland in documents filed with the U.S. government, according to a new examination of six years of financial records in the U.S. and Europe. And the group behind the finding wants the discrepancy investigated as part of a sprawling government probe into the Trump Organization‘s finances.

Trump claimed the resorts — Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen and Trump Turnberry, both in Scotland, and Trump Doonbeg in Ireland — brought in a total of about $179 million in revenue on U.S. documents where he is supposed to list his personal income. Records in the United Kingdom and Ireland indicate the resorts‘ revenues were millions of dollars less — about $152 million — and show they actually lost $77 million after accounting for expenses.

Trump claimed the Scottish resorts alone were worth at least $100 million total in 2018 on U.S. documents, but the U.K. records indicate that the resorts aren’t worth anywhere near that because the debts exceeded the assets by about $80 million that year.