Ethics experts criticized President Donald Trump this weekend for promoting one of his privately owned Scottish golf courses. This might be why he did it in the first place:
The resort in question, the Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd in Aberdeenshire, was recently ordered to pay the Scottish government for legal fees incurred in a court battle after Trump lost a lawsuit to stop the construction of a nearby wind farm. The White House did not immediately respond to a Law&Crime request for comment.
It’s in this context that Trump quote-tweeted The Trump Organization promotion of the location, and tried to tie it into the broader relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom.
Trump purchased the land in 2005, but the project under-performed, even losing money amid friction with neighbors, according to a Bloomberg report in 2018.
Some critics were displeased to see the president mention his resort on Twitter. From Walter Shaub, former Director of the Office of Government Ethics:
He’s now with Citizens for Responsibility an Ethics, a non-profit that often files complaints regarding alleged wrongdoing by Trump administration officials.
There was also Brianne Gorod, chief counsel at the progressive Constitutional Accountability Center.
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