Trump's 'unexplained wealth' in Scotland spurs new calls for investigation
Donald Trump is facing fresh calls for an investigation into his "unexplained wealth" in Scotland.
The Scottish Green Party has thus far been unsuccessful in their efforts to have the Trump Organization's golf courses in Aberdeen and Ayrshire investigated through an Unexplained Wealth Order that would give law enforcement the authority to probe and potentially confiscate the former president's assets, reported The Independent.
“The verdict from New York, and the litany of scandals surrounding Donald Trump, underlines the urgent need to get to the bottom of the former president’s finances and the business he runs,” said party co-leader Patrick Harvie. "With every passing day we are seeing even more serious questions about the honesty, integrity and basic trustworthiness of the former president."
Trump was found liable for civil fraud in New York for routinely misleading banks and insurers for his own financial benefit and then convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to an adult film actress in possible violation of election law, and Harvie told Scottish ministers the case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was "urgent and overwhelming."
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“We now have indisputable and independent evidence in the public domain that Trump’s business dealings, including those in Scotland, were linked to fraud," Harvie said. “Yet while Trump is finally being held to account by the legal system in the U.S., Scotland’s Civil Recovery Unit have provided the same comment that they provided in 2021, that they cannot ‘confirm or deny’ whether a civil recovery investigation has commenced.”
A spokesperson for the Scottish government told The Independent that any decision about such investigations, which are launched when an individual or entity's assets appear disproportionate their income, would be made by the Civil Recovery Unit and declined further comment.
“It would not be appropriate to comment as those decisions are entirely operational matters for the Civil Recovery Unit," the government representative said.