Donald Trump Accused Of ‘Serious Crime’ By Scotland Lawmaker Over Mystery Cash Used In Golf Course Purchase

In 2014, the year before he declared his run for president, Donald Trump spent a reported $45 million in cash to buy the historic Turnberry golf resort in Scotland. But the source of the funds he used to purchase the golf course have always remained a mystery, and this week a member of Scotland’s parliament called on the government to investigate where Trump got the money. In fact, Scottish Green Party co-leader Patrick Harvie said, as quoted by The Scotsman newspaper, Trump may have “been involved in serious crime” in order to acquire the cash.

Harvie called on the Scottish government to use a 2018 law known as an “unexplained wealth order,” which gives Scottish authorities power to investigate potentially corrupt foreign officials who may have laundered illegally earned or stolen money through Scotland.

If foreign owners of land or other assets in Scotland are unable to show a legitimate source of their funding, the Scottish government may seize their property, under the relatively new and rarely-used law, according to The Scotsman report.

Scottish First Minister — the highest official in the country’s government — Nicola Sturgeon said that she would take the request seriously, but said that criminal matters were more appropriate for law enforcement agencies to investigate.

The Scottish golf course purchase was one of Trump’s final acts in a nine year, $400 million buying spree that saw his company acquire 14 properties — all with cash. But in one incident that remains unexplained, Trump attempted to buy a historic hotel in St. Andrews, Scotland — “the birthplace of golf” — with a $50 million loan from the Bank of Scotland.

The bank turned him down. At the time, in 2008, Trump’s business was still reeling from a series of bankruptcies and was considered unworthy of credit by most major banks.

Somehow, at the same time, Trump claimed that his business was in “a very, very strong cash position,” despite the economic collapse of 2008 and subsequent recession. He claimed at the time that his business had bank accounts brimming with cash to the tune of $2 billion. But if those claims were accurate, the source of his sudden cash bonanza was never fully explained.

According to a report by The Guardian, however, Eric Trump may have revealed to a golf journalist where the cash came from.

“We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” he said.

Speaking at a real estate conference in 2008, Donald Trump Jr. also said that the family businesses “see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” as quoted by The Guardian.

In the Scottish parliament this week, Harvie said that Trump’s known sources of funds were “insufficient” to finance the Scottish golf purchases, as quoted by The Herald Scotland.

“Trump is a politically exposed person in terms of the law,” Harvie said, as quoted by The Herald, adding that there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that the U.S. president and his associates “have been involved in serious crime.”