Pulitzer-winning reporter flags mysterious revenue surges at Trump's overseas golf courses

Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold on Friday raised questions about a mysterious surge in revenue that occurred over the past year at two of President Donald Trump's overseas golf courses.

Writing on Twitter, Fahrenthold uses some recent financial disclosures from the Trump Organization to show that revenue at a Trump golf course in Ireland rose by 51 percent year-over-year from 2017 to 2018, while revenue at a Scottish Trump golf course surged by 87 percent year-over-year from 2017 to 2018.

As Fahrenthold puts it, "the biggest increases in golf revenue came where Trump needed them most: his money-losing golf resorts overseas."

It's important that these two courses saw substantial increases, Fahrenthold writes, because many of Trump's US-based golf courses and hotels saw year-over-year decreases in revenue from 2017 to 2018.

What makes these two golf clubs notable is that Trump bought them both in 2014 as part of an all-cash transaction that totaled nearly $80 million. David Geltner, a professor of real estate finance at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told the Washington Post last month that shelling out $80 million in cash for golf courses was highly unusual, as golf courses aren't guaranteed money makers and developers typically like to spread around risk by bringing in creditors to lend money.

Additionally, James Dodson, a sports journalist who primarily writes about golf, told Boston-based radio station WBUR last year that Eric Trump told him in 2014 that the Trump Organization was not relying on American banks to fund its golf course purchases but was instead relying on Russian golf enthusiasts for cash.

Read Fahrenthold's full thread below.