The only gasbag at Turnberry today is on the ground because of an air exclusion zone.
Protesters did show up so the $6 million in UK money allocated to policing Trump’s private games seems not quite enough.
Aides had said Trump would spend the weekend preparing to meet Putin on Monday in Helsinki, but the tweets showed other topics were on his mind.
“I have arrived in Scotland and will be at Trump Turnberry for two days of meetings, calls and hopefully, some golf - my primary form of exercise!” he tweeted early Saturday, referencing his seaside golf resort. “The weather is beautiful, and this place is incredible! Tomorrow I go to Helsinki for a Monday meeting with Vladimir Putin.”
Trump was later seen playing the Turnberry links, several holes of which are visible from a nearby beach, where dozens of people staged a protest picnic Saturday. He was videotaped waving at protesters as they shouted “No Trump, No KKK, No Racist USA!” before resuming his game. He was also seen posing for photos.
A line of police, some on horseback, stood between the course and protesters. Snipers perched atop a nearby tower overlooking the vast property.
The protesters were among the thousands who came out in Scotland and England in opposition to the U.S. president’s visit to both countries.
Some 10,000 people marched Saturday through the Scottish capital of Edinburgh, while police searched for a paraglider who breached a no-fly zone and flew a protest banner over the resort in western Scotland where Trump and his wife, Melania, are staying through Sunday.
www.apnews.com/...
For ethics experts, this all adds up to just the latest example—albeit a very galling one—of how the president of the United States frequently uses his public office to raise the profile of his private enterprises, notes the New York Times.
Since moving into the White House, Trump has visited a Trump property on 169 days.
That doesn’t just mean that the news media are talking about his properties but also legitimizes the way in which his properties become known as places where private citizens may be able to get a word in with the president, or at the very least his staff. “I view this as kind of a forced subsidy of an infomercial for his properties,” Norman L. Eisen, the chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Times. “He’s attempting to utilize his trip to get beneficial P.R.”
slate.com/...
Turnberry is a venerable British Open course that Trump purchased in 2014 for what was reportedly about 36 million pounds (or $63 million at the time) in cash. He then renovated and relaunched it over the following two years. It’s a breathtaking property that borders choppy, gray seas, and features fairways swollen with undulating turf, knotty roughs and sprawling greens.
Despite its virtues — and despite financial disclosure forms the president has filed in the U.S. suggesting otherwise — Turnberry appears to have largely lost piles of money. That makes it a lesson in the strengths and weaknesses of the president’s instinctive and haphazard approach to business and politics, reminders of longstanding problems that have dogged him throughout his career, including financial conflicts of interest that have taken on new traction with his ascent to the White House.
According to corporate filings in the U.K., Turnberry lost $36.1 million in 2016 (the most recent figure available) on revenue of just $12 million. The operation’s debt load nearly doubled between 2015 and 2016, according to the filings.Turnberry has also been the subject of congressionalhearings that included testimony speculating about how Trump arranged financing to buy that course and fund his others in Scotland and Ireland. Eric Trump, the president’s son, has been quoted as saying that some of his family’s funding for its golf business came from Russia (Trump fils disputed the account).
www.bloomberg.com/...
Some Signs of Money Laundering…
The primary contract person does not appear to be the beneficial owners but appears to be acting as a nominee… when questions are asked about the fund – you get stories but no answers. These front men have more stories than there are gains of sand on the beaches of the world. Some are so good at answering the question – that they can say nothing for hours and have you agreeing with them – and you have no idea why.
The use of many different entities and transaction architectures that escapes understanding. It is the “Clown Car” of finance. We have seen the routine of a zillion clowns coming out of one car at a circus. It is the same thing in finance. The clown car and all of the antics of the clowns serves to distract the viewer that it s is the same number of clowns sneaking back into the car only to come out again from another door.