Eric Trump Denies Story That Russians Funded $100 Million Golf Course Project

Eric Trump, son of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, is seen during the final round of the Cadillac Championship golf tournament, Sunday, March 6, 2016, in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Luis Alvarez)
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Eric Trump on Sunday denied the claim of one well-known golf writer who recalled Trump had told him three years earlier that he and his father “have all the funding we need out of Russia” for a $100 million golf course project.

That golf writer, James Dodson, recalled to WBUR on Friday that the remark came during a tour of the recently renamed Trump National Golf Club Charlotte. By then, the Trumps had been given the cold shoulder for years by American banks wary of their record.

Dodson asked Eric Trump and his father, now President Donald Trump, where they got funding for the North Carolina property. “Well, we don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,” Dodson recalled Eric Trump saying. Trump added, according to Dodson: “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.”

Eric Trump denied saying that in a comment to the New York Post on Sunday.

“It’s a recollection from some guy three years ago through a third person,” he said.

“We own our courses free and clear,” Eric Trump said, calling the story “categorically untrue” and “complete garbage.”

“We have zero ties to Russian investors,” he said.

Eric Trump’s categorical denial echoed a January assertion from the President, in a tweet, that he had “NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA – NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!”

However, that is untrue. CNN assembled a partial list of Trump’s dealings with Russians, and in Russia.

And in 2008, according to a report at the time in industry website eTurboNews, Donald Trump Jr. told a real estate conference: “And in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets; say in Dubai, and certainly with our project in SoHo and anywhere in New York. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia. There’s indeed a lot of money coming for new-builds and resale reflecting a trend in the Russian economy and, of course, the weak dollar versus the ruble.”

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