President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that Democrats and the mainstream media have completely fabricated the connection between his business and Russia. However, The Hill brought to light an interview with golf writer James Dodson in which he claims that in 2014, Eric Trump told him that Russian investors had loaned Trump $100 million to build the Trump National Charlotte golf course.
Dodson gave an interview on Boston’s NPR radio station WBUR where he recollects being invited to play the newly unveiled course with Donald and Eric Trump. The prolific golf writer recalls that Donald Trump mentioned to him that he had secured $100 million to pay for the course.
Later, when paired with Trump’s son Eric, this conversation occurred:
“‘So when I got in the cart with Eric,’ Dodson says, ‘as we were setting off, I said, ‘Eric, who’s funding? I know no banks — because of the recession, the Great Recession — have touched a golf course. You know, no one’s funding any kind of golf construction. It’s dead in the water the last four or five years.’ And this is what he said. He said, ‘Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’ I said, ‘Really?’ And he said, ‘Oh, yeah. We’ve got some guys that really, really love golf, and they’re really invested in our programs. We just go there all the time.’ Now that was three years ago, so it was pretty interesting.'”
Interesting is a bit of an understatement.
Trump famously spends a lot of time at his golf courses, and he also spends a lot of his time claiming that he is not beholden to Russia in any way. For him to have taken this much Russian money, so close to starting his bid for President, is yet another damning piece of circumstantial evidence that will surely be ignored by Republicans in Congress.
Although this is again just circumstantial evidence, it continues to add up. Surely Trump will continue working hard to “Make America Great Again,” as he promised to do this weekend. Kidding! He was golfing again:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQoLd-Jb3NI
Featured Image via Flickr user Steve Jurvetson / CC BY 2.0.
