Trump earned more at Mar-a-Lago, from 'Art of the Deal,' financial disclosure form shows
The report was his third since declaring his candidacy two years ago.
— -- In a financial disclosure form made public by the Office of Government Ethics Friday, President Donald Trump's reported earnings from his Mar-a-Lago resort and popular book "The Art of the Deal" increased compared to previous reports as he won the presidency and took office.
The disclosure form, which totals 98 pages, is the third submitted by Trump to OGE since declaring his candidacy two years ago. The report includes lists of positions held outside the government, assets, and ranges of income and outstanding liabilities, among other details.
A report signed by Trump on May 16, 2016, shows almost $29.8 million in income from Mar-a-Lago and between $50,000 and $100,000 in revenue from "The Art of the Deal" royalties. Those numbers increased to almost $37.3 million and between $100,000 and $1 million respectively in the form released Friday, which was signed on June 14.
Other sources of income included on the report are the limited liability company that operates the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. which reported $19.7 million in hotel related revenue, and the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida reported $18.4 million in golf-related revenue.
The document also indicates that Trump terminated his positions at hundreds of Trump Organization entities as of Jan. 19, 2017, the day before his inauguration, which he said he would do.
In a statement, White House press secretary Sean Spicer noted that Trump "welcomed the opportunity to voluntarily file" the disclosure form.
"While this filing is voluntary (as no report was due until May 2018), it has been certified by the Office of Government Ethics pursuant to its normal procedures," continued the statement from Spicer.
While the form, as Spicer noted, is voluntary for Trump to complete, it has been submitted by all presidents in recent history.
Richard Painter, who served as an ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, told ABC News that the form shows Trump "still owns most of his business empire."
"The structure is different because he put some of it in trust, but he’s the beneficiary of those trusts," Painter said.
“And that’s a problem,” he added. Trump's holdings “will look different on the form but most of his economic interests in the Trump business empire are still intact and remain the same,” he said, though Painter admitted that Trump did sell some of his publicly traded stocks.
Painter also noted that the form doesn't state who Trump is borrowing from. “They do all their business through corporations and the real issue is: Who is loaning money to those corporations?" he said. “They could be borrowing money from Citibank or from Vladimir Putin, we just don’t know.”
Painter pointed out that Trump isn't obligated to disclose any of his creditors, just debt that he himself owed or guaranteed.