Are Trump’s Scottish Golf Courses Laundering Russian Cash?

If you’ve been keeping up with the post-presidential life and times of Donald Trump, you know that unlike Barack Obama and George W. Bush, who left office and threw themselves into memoir-writing and painting, respectively, Trump spends his days telling people the election was stolen from him and amassing a list of legal problems that would make the Manson family blush. There are, of course, the 29 lawsuits and four criminal investigations against him and now, we can add a potential probe into his Scottish golf courses to the docket.

Reuters reports that Avaaz, a human rights group, has filed a petition in Scotland’s highest civil court seeking a judicial review of the government’s decision to reject an “unexplained wealth order” on Trump’s local golf courses. In February, Scottish Parliament voted 89-32 against the motion, which was brought by the Scottish Green Party and would have sought information on the source of the money the ex-president’s business used to buy property in Aberdeenshire, where he built a golf course and hotel, and Turnberry, a seaside course purchased for $60 million. After decades of financing property purchases with debt, Trump dropped more than $300 million in cash buying and developing the Scottish courses; according to Reuters, neither of them have turned a profit.

All of which has apparently struck some Scots as quite to very shady. Per Reuters:

When Parliament voted against Avaaz’s motion in February, Humza Yousaf, the justice minister and a member of the ruling Scottish National Party, argued that wealth orders should be brought by law enforcement, not politicians, saying, “There must not be political interference in the enforcement of the law,” according to Reuters. He added that the Civil Recovery Unit, an enforcement agency that reports to Scotland’s most senior legal officer, should “undertake the investigatory role.”   read more..

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/05/donald-trump-scottish-golf-courses-questions