When President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure form was released last week, we dropped what we were doing and started digging.
We found a few things, including some newly registered companies and a jump in revenue for Trump Productions, which helped produce shows like “The Apprentice” and the lesser-known dating show, “Donald J. Trump Presents: The Ultimate Merger.”
We’ve decided to show how we did it so you can help us go deeper. Below are tips and tricks for finding noteworthy items buried in the 92-page disclosure.
First, some background. Trump’s financial disclosure form, which he files each year with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, provides the most detailed account available of the president’s finances, from his sprawling business empire to individual payments made to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. The forms are the best window we have into his financial holdings. (His tax returns would also be helpful, but he hasn’t released those.)
To see newly created companies, we put Trump’s new disclosure form next to last year’s form. That’s how we found T Retail LLC, an “online retail business; startup” that’s listed in the 2018 disclosure, but not in the 2017 one.
Based on its description, we suspected the company was tied in some way to TrumpStore.com, which launched in November 2017 and sells Trump-branded clothing and merchandise.
To confirm this, we used the website OpenCorporates to see where the company is registered. The site showed T Retail LLC registered in Louisiana and Florida. Previous stories have noted that TrumpStore.com only gathers taxes from a few states, including Louisiana and Florida.
We checked Trumpstore.com’s shipping and returns page, which says it collects sales taxes for four states: Louisiana, Florida, New York and Virginia. So then we went to those states’ business registry websites and found T Retail LLC listed in each of them.
Aside from some new companies,we also found companies that disappeared on this year’s form and others that saw spikes or big dips in revenue. Here are some deals we’re interested in knowing more about:
We’re embedding Trump’s two most recent financial disclosures below, as well as two disclosures he filed as a presidential candidate. Have a look for yourself and let us know if you find anything.
A note to readers looking through disclosures: In the past the Trump Organization has used “revenue” and “profit” interchangeably, though they are not the same thing.
