Representatives from Trump Winery in Virginia are now saying that the property and the business have no connection to President Donald Trump or the Trump Organization. In fact, it alleges that the only Trump affiliated with the vineyard and wine company is Eric Trump.
The Huffington Post says that the Trump Winery website on its legal page states that it is a registered trade name of Eric Trump Wine Manufacturing LLC, and it’s “not owned or affiliated” with Donald J. Trump, the Trump Organization or any of its affiliates.
This change is just ahead of the Trump Vineyard Estates in Charlottesville, Virginia, seeking permission from the Department of Labor to hire temporary farm laborers under the H-2A visa program. This program allows U.S. employers to hire non-citizen workers only if there are no Americans able or willing to do the job. The temporary winery positions pay $12.25 an hour.
But despite the wording on the website, the Trump Vineyard Estates, which includes the winery, is part of the real estate portfolio of the Trump Organization, and it is Trump Vineyard Estates which filed the request with the Labor Department for winery workers.
Donald & Eric Trump’s wine company once sponsored an event honoring Russian Ambassador Kislyak
Uncovered by @Funder #DworkinReport https://t.co/6hiCyg9aCH
— Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 27, 2018
But Buzzfeed continues to insist in its latest article that it is indeed the president who still owns the winery and the vineyard estates that surround it.
The latest request for employees for the winery is seeking 23 seasonal employees from mid-March to late October and specifies that it is outdoors in weather “as cold as 10 degrees” and often in a bent position.
It is unclear when the Trump Organization or Donald Trump himself claim to have divested from the winery but during his campaign for president, he tweeted out a link for an article called “Trump Talks Politics at His Virginia Winery.”
Then in August 2017 during the riots in Charlottesville, Donald Trump stated that he was very familiar with the area because he owned a winery there.
But recently on Twitter, Donald Trump chastised Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for wanting unrestricted borders so that she could secure seasonal employees for her California vineyard, says the Inquisitr . Trump said that Pelosi was taking a stand against his proposed wall to appeal to all of her “wine country donors” for their “grape picking” needs.
Like Trump, Pelosi has applied for and hosted foreign workers for seasonal picking and vineyard maintenance, but she has not denied ownership of Zinfandel Lane Vineyard in St. Helena, California.
