Joe.My.God. LGBT News
The Scotsman reports:
Patrick Harvie MSP, co-leader of the Scottish Greens, said there were reasonable grounds for suspecting that the US president, or people he is connected with, “have been involved in serious crime.” He has called on ministers to apply to the Court of Session to seek answers as to how Mr Trump’s bankrolled his multimillion acquisitions of land and property in his mother’s homeland.
An UWO is a relatively new – and rarely used – power which has been designed to target suspected corrupt foreign officials who have potentially laundered stolen money through the UK. The mechanism, introduced in 2018, is an attempt to force the owners of assets to disclose their wealth. If a suspected corrupt foreign official, or their family, cannot show a legitimate source for their riches, then authorities can apply to a court to seize the property.
The London Times reports:
Scotland’s most senior prosecutor was asked to look into allegations of money laundering at President Trump’s golf course. The lord advocate was sent a dossier querying the source of funding for Trump Turnberry, the US president’s golf resort on the Ayrshire coast, by Scottish government officials in May.
The dossier was compiled by Avaaz, a US anti-corruption campaign organisation, and Westwater Advocates, a law firm.
Patrick Harvie, the co-convener of the Scottish Green Party, urged Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, to respond to Avaaz’s demand for an unobtained wealth order to investigate the source of funding for Trump Turnberry.
Britain’s Daily Record reports:
Raising the issue at First Minister’s Questions, the Harvie said there “remain big questions over Trump’s business dealings in Scotland”. He added: “The purchase of Menie and the Turnberry golf resort were part of Trump’s huge cash spending spree in the midst of a global financial crisis.”
“Will the First Minister seek an unexplained wealth order and make it clear that Scotland is not a country where anyone with the money can buy whatever land and property they want, no questions asked?” Sturgeon told Harvie he was raising “serious issues”, adding: “I don’t want to give him answers without the full information in front of me.”
A Scottish legislator is calling on the Scottish government to investigate how the Trump Organization obtained the massive amount of cash used to buy the properties the President’s business owns in Scotland. https://t.co/5hFiitMVaB
— Noah Bookbinder (@NoahBookbinder) February 27, 2020
Where did @realDonaldTrump get the money to buy it after multiple bankruptcies? Why was @DonaldJTrumpJr bragging about access to Russian cash? Scotland’s government should be seeking an Unexplained Wealth Order to get real answers. https://t.co/OlJ4Hg5Gi1
— Avaaz (@Avaaz) February 27, 2020