It was revealed today that the Scottish Government had asked Donald Trump to put his name to a statement supporting their decision to release Abdelbaset al-Megrah from prison in July 2009. I suspect Mr Trump was approached as he is a GlobalScot.
Last week, Donald Trump confirmed that he was planning a “massive lawsuit” against the Scottish Government and claimed that Alex Salmond had a “death wish for Scotland.”
Why is this man still a GlobalScot – a prestigious list of International Ambassadors for Scotland?
See Previous Posts in GlobalScot (particularly earliest one) outlining the scheme and with links to data list of all GlobalScots.
There is a programme on Radio 4 called The Unbelievable Truth in which panellists compete to see how many nuggets of truth they are able to hide among their lies and as an example of the Alice in Wonderland world in which Donald Trump inhabits, consider this
“I am considered a world-class expert in tourism. When you ask, “Where is the expert and where is the evidence?” I say: I am the evidence.” (col 1344)
Following the appearance of Donald Trump and Trump organisation Executive Vice-President, George Sorial, at the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee of the Scottish Parliament on 25 April 2012, I can confirm that he repeated 3 of the 10 lies documented here and added one more. The Official Report of the Committee meeting is available here and the (Col xxxx) references are to column numbers from the report.
Lie 7
“I have invested tens of millions of pounds in my site on the North Sea coast.” (col 1342)
“Tens of millions” means at least £20 million. From the published accounts of Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd. to 31 December 2010, only £6,455,690 has been invested in addition to the £6,917,850 capital to acquire the land.
Lie 8
“By the time that I bought the land, I did not think that the wind farm would happen.” (col 1344)
“I felt confident by the time that I bought the land that the wind farm would not happen.” (col 1344)
“By the time that I bought, I felt secure and I felt secure for a period of time.” (col 1345-36)
As revealed in the 21 February 2006 “deal killer” email, Scottish Development International (SDI) were telling the Scottish Executive that their “client” was “about to conclude a deal within the next few days” and was seeking “an authoritative view as quickly as possible from the Scottish Executive on the wind farm proposal”. Donald Trump had acquired the bulk of Menie Estate for £4.498 million a month previously on 27 January 2006.
SDI can only have obtained these reported views from the Trump Organisation and I have today asked SDI to confirm the source of their information. But as things stand, Donald Trump misled the Committee by saying that by the time he had bought the land, he was confident that the EOWDC project “would not happen” if a month later he was desperately seeking assurances.
Under questioning by Patrick Harvie MSP, George Sorial reacted angrily to this allegation.
George Sorial: “Mr Harvie asked about the e-mail from SDI. Why does he not ask SDI that question? It wrote the e-mail. The e-mail was not to us; it was from SDI to the Scottish Government. It is not reasonable for Mr Harvie to ask us to speculate on what SDI meant by what it said. That is absolutely ridiculous.” (col 1346)
Patrick Harvie: “On 21 February 2006, following discussions with yourselves, SDI wrote an e-mail that indicated that it was clearly under the impression that the deal would be completed in a few days.”(col 1346)
George Sorial: “That is hearsay. Were we copied in on that e-mail? It was an e-mail from SDI to the Scottish Government. Why would you even bring it up? It has no bearing on this hearing. That is ridiculous.” (col 1347)
Of course the email was SDI to the Scottish Government but the views reported were attributed to the Trump Organisation and it is patently ridiculous to suggest that they invented these views. Mr Sorial will be pleased to know that SDI have now been asked about the email. (see UPDATE)
Lie 9
In response to a line of questioning about a Visit Scotland poll on wind farms and tourism, Mr Trump replied,
“No one knows more about polls than I do; in fact, if you want to hear about polls, I had 93 per cent approval for my project when people were fighting me on it.” (1353)
Despite much repetition of this figure, Trump has never produced any evidence to substantiate the claim despite repeated requests to do so. This allegation will be withdrawn if he can prove it is true.
A new lie
There was one additional lie in Trump’s evidence. This was the claim that Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi
“was been seen running in the park last week” (col1355)
No comment.
UPDATE 23 NOVEMBER 2012
The Economy, Energy & Tourism Committee today published the report on its inquiry. Paragraph 288 notes that “While some strongly held localised and anecdotal opinion exists, the Committee has seen no empirical evidence which demonstrates that the tourism industry in Scotland will be adversely affected by the wider deployment of renewable energy projects, particularly onshore and offshore wind.”
In relation to the deal killer email, Scottish Development International replied to me in May 2012 to say that they do not have any information relating to the claims made in the email since “the author of the email advises, that to their recollection. much of the information was covered in telephone conversations and was not formally recorded.”
Scottish Daily Mail 17 April 2012 (click image for full report)
George Sorial, Donald Trump’s legal counsel and spokesperson is quoted in the Daily Mail today as saying that,
“We will not allow a reckless First Minister to (sic) destroy Scotland’s tourism sector”.
I am not sure upon what authority Mr Sorial draws to claim to have any ability to do such a thing. If the Scottish Government wishes to “destroy Scotland’s tourism sector”, then it is free to do so. Last time I checked, neither Mr Sorial nor Mr Trump are UK citizens resident in Scotland and therefore have no business in “not allowing” any democratically elected government in Scotland to do what they wish to do.
The Trump Organisation has legitimate concerns over the impact of the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre on its golf course development at Menie and has outlined these in a (rather confused) submission to the Economy, Energy and Tourism Committee of the Scottish Parliament. No doubt the Committee will listen carefully to what he has to say next week.
But before anyone sheds a tear from poor Mr Trump, please note two points.
(1) Mr Trump claims in his submission that “If I had known about the current wind turbine proposals, I would never have built in Scotland” (pg 6 of his submission) But he knew full well that this project was in the planning stages before he bought the Menie Estate in May 2006. He described the proposal in February 2006 as a “deal killer” in discussions with Scottish Development International. Nevertheless, he went full speed ahead, knowing all the time that the offshore wind project was to subject to the same process of planning consent as his own golf course project. [NOTE Thur 19 April – this timeline not now the case – see subsequent blog post.]
(2) Contrary to what Mr Sorial is quoted as saying in the Daily Mail viz,
“Mr Sorial said there was no limit on the campaign and warned his boss was prepared to spend many millions to protect his investment – his £750 million golfing resort on the Menie Estate north of Aberdeen.”
and in his submission viz,
“In fact, my development in Scotland, despite an investment of tens of millions of pounds, is debt free” (pg 2 of submission)
the Trump Organisation acquired Menie Estate for around £6.7 million and have invested a total of £6.5 million since then (further details here).
Donald Trump Senior is (and remains) a GlobalScot together with Donald Trump jun. and George Sorial.
Will they still be GlobalScots after their appearance at the Scottish Parliament on 25 April?
Day 28 – 26 March
Donald Trump will be giving evidence to the Energy, Tourism and Economy Committee of the Scottish Parliament on 25 April 2012. More background to this in Holyrood magazine here. Scottish Greens have called on Electoral Commission to investigate claims that Trump will be funding campaigns in the forthcoming local council elections.
Donald Trump Senior is (and remains) a GlobalScot
Donald Trump Junior is (and remains) a GlobalScot
George Sorial is (and remains) a GlobalScot
Day 15 – 13 March
Donald Trump doesn’t “care who Willie Rennie is” and calls Alex Salmond “Mad Alex”
Among my emails this morning was one claiming that statements I have made on my blogs on the GlobalScot programme are “inaccurate and libelous” and that “you are now on notice”. For the record, libel is not a civil wrong in Scotland although defamation is (which is my attempt at being light-hearted – in Scots law the term is defamation). A request was made to remove all material relating to the Trump Organisation
I have now made a minor edit to my previous blog but will not be removing any further material.
For the record,
Donald Trump Senior is (and remains) a GlobalScot
Donald Trump Junior is (and remains) a GlobalScot
George Sorial is (and remains) a GlobalScot
FURTHER NEWS
According to this email from Kevin Pringle (released as part of the publication of correspondence between the Scottish government and the Trump Organisation), since its launch in November 2001, the GlobalScot network “has grown to an international membership of nearly 950 individuals.” That was in December 2007.
As of August, 2011, there are 746 members. The network is thus getting smaller.
I would like it to be made smaller still – by a further 3.
“We don’t have any record of Rupert Murdoch responding to the original invitation or any further correspondence with him regarding GlobalScot activities.”
I am happy therefore to confirm that Rupert Murdoch is NOT a GlobalScot.
Donald Trump is still a GlobalScot (see my post of yesterday). Early days though. A motion lodged in Parliament today by Patrick Harvie seeking support for revoking Trump’s membership now has three signatories. And the past 24 hours have revealed new information about the GlobalScot network whose membership can be seen here.
Yesterday, my good friend Andrew Thompson had a good look at the 746 names on the list and spotted the name of George Sorial, Trump Organisations’s Vice-President and Legal Counsel. The other name on the list was Donald Trump Jun.
Now, I knew that Donald Trump Sr. had been invited and had accepted an invitation to join by Jack McConnell. But his name was not on the list. I did not know that Trump Jr was a member nor George Sorial. We also know that Alex Salmond had invited Rupert Murdoch who, according to Salmond’s letter, accepted the invitation. His name is not on the list though. But for the moment, let’s stick to the Trumps.
I phoned Scottish Development International and asked them whether Donald Trump (jun. or sr.) and George Sorial were still members. A spokesperson from Scottish Enterprise said,
“We have over 750 GlobalScots – all of whom are respected and successful business leaders around the world. Not all of them will agree on every single aspect of what we do. Donald Trump was asked by the previous First Minister to become a GlobalScot due to his passion and we have no intention of altering Mr Trump or Mr Sorial’s position as GlobalScots.”
I then asked why Donald Trump Sr’s name did not appear on the list but Junior’s did and whether either or both were members. I was told,
Donald Trump Senior and Donald Trump Junior are both GlobalScots.
and
George Sorial is Trump Sr’s representative on the list.
Which is strange because GlobalScot makes very clear on its website that “Membership of GlobalScot is by invitation only, personal and non-transferable.”
That means that Trump Sr’s membership is personal to him and non-transferable and thus Mr Sorial cannot be his “representative”. How many others are “representatives” of other persons unknown?
Scottish Enterprise has not yet responded to this point.
The campaign goes on.
UPDATE 13 November 2013
According to an FoI request submitted to Scottish Enterprise in July 2013, George Sorial is a full GlobalScot – not merely Trump Senior’s representative as Scottish Enterprise claim above. Here is the text of the FoI which includes the information recorded by the assessors as to why Donald Trump Jnr and George Sorial were qualified to be GlobalScots.
Alex Salmond met Rupert Murdoch today for lunch. They talked about future investment in Scotland. I am prepared to give Mr Salmond the benefit of the doubt in terms of the wisdom of aligning himself with Mr Murdoch and I am prepared to give Mr Murdoch the benefit of the doubt when he”gave strong assurances that News International are intent on consigning these matters [phone hacking et al] to the past and emerging a better organisation from it.”
I do both of the above with some difficulty but I do them nevertheless.
It thus follows that Rupert Murdoch is someone who might be entitled to be a GlobalScot.
Might.
Imagine on the other hand if Rupert Murdoch had, instead of meeting with Alex Salmond for soup and talking about future investment plans, announced that he planned to spend millions of pounds to fund a campaign to oppose a central plank of the Government’s economic strategy and was considering launching a legal action in order to “delay it for years to come”.
Would Alex Salmond have met with him?
Would he be considered a fit and proper person to hold exclusive membership of the GlobalScot network?
The fact that one might even hesitate before asserting that the answer must be an emphatic no shows how far out in the deep murky waters of compromise we might be swimming.
But Donald Trump was in much the same situation as Murdoch in the past. Not in terms of presiding over rampant criminality but in being somebody the Scottish Government was obliged to deal with and who managed to convince those in whose gift it was to permit such things that he intended to make serious investment in Scotland.
As a consequence he was appointed a GlobalScot by Jack McConnell and his son was then invited to join by Alex Salmond. Like Murdoch I can (just and with some difficulty) accept the legitimacy of inviting the Trumps to be GlobalScots.
But all that has changed now. If I were to join one of Donald Trump’s golf clubs and announced I would be spending £10 million to campaign against it and launch a lawsuit to frustrate its plans I doubt I would remain a member for very long.
So, yesterday, Patrick Harvie MSP and I called for Trump’s membership of the GlobalScot network to be withdrawn (here and here). For our pains, Trump claimed that we showed “fascistic tendencies”.
Today, I made further investigations into the GlobalScot network and uncovered some interesting new facts – which I will relay in my next blog.
For now, it is enough to know that the monumental disgust and loathing I feel towards Rupert Murdoch and his empire still allows me to understand why Mr Salmond might be justified in meeting for lunch and makes it all the more difficult to understand why Donald Trump is still a valued Scottish Government ambassador.
The Scottish Government has withdrawn Donald Trump’s role as a GlobalScot in response to remarks he made that Muslims should be prohibited from entering the UK.
—————————————————————————————————————-
Donald Trump Jr. arrives in Scotland today (28 Feb 2012) to further his father’s campaign against wind energy in Scotland. He will be attending the Communities Against Turbines Scotland event at St Andrews Town Hall, 7.15pm on 1st March. His father has claimed in a letter to Alex Salmond that “foreign energy companies will destroy your country and economy”, and that Mr Salmond “will single-handedly have done more damage to Scotland than virtually any event in Scottish history”. He goes on to say that “I have authorised my staff to allocate a substantial amount of money to launch an international campaign to fight your plan to surround Scotland’s coast with many thousands of wind turbines.”One report suggests that he has allocated £10 million to the campaign.
Mr Trump has also threatened to bring a lawsuit against the Scottish Government which would, he argues, delay the proposed European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre off the Aberdeenshire coast which he has railed against previously.
Now renewable energy forms a major part of the Scottish Government’s economic strategy as outlined in their Routemap for renewable Energy in Scotland. Donald Trump Sr. has stated quite clearly that he intends to do all he can to frustrate this by an international multi-million pound campaign and by legal actions designed to delay an important experimental project. Donald Trump Jr. has arrived to carry out his father’s instructions and oversee the beginnings of this onslaught.
All of which is rather interesting in the context of a Scottish Government initiative to encourage support for Scotland’s economic future by international entrepreneurs.
The GlobalScot network is a project of Scottish Development International (SDI) consisting of 746 “successful executives located throughout the world”. GlobalScots all have “strong connections with Scotland” and “each of them has a strong desire to see Scotland succeed in the global business arena.” Currently, SDI is “not looking to grow the membership significantly however we are currently looking to identify prospective members in the following sectors.” (and the list includes Renewable Energy, Offshore Wind, and Marine Energy).
“Donald has shown me a real passion for Scotland. He is a globally recognised figure who can help us to promote Scotland. I am delighted that he has taken up my offer. This is a good bit of business for all concerned.”
Membership of GlobalScot is “by invitation only, personal and non-transferable.” Here, for the first time, is published the full list of members. What is of some limited interest is that the name of Donald Trump Sr. is not on the list. Has he resigned? However, Donald Trump Jr. is named. When was he invited? Surely he didn’t take over from his dad (membership is non-transferable).
What is also of some limited interest is that in October 2007, Alex Salmond invited Rupert Murdoch to become a GlobalScot and impressed upon him that GlobalScot is a “prestigious, international network of Scots, and those with an affinity for Scotland, who are committed to advancing Scotland’s economic success.” The letter claims that Murdoch accepted the invitation but his name does not appear on the list.
Back to Trump though, and in Jack McConnell’s letter of invitation, he wrote that,
“I should welcome your participation in the GlobalScot programme because I believe that your experience, knowledge and skills can make a tangible impact on our economic development efforts.”
Which brings me to conclude with the title of this blog.
Why is Donald Trump still a GlobalScot?
Given that both Donald Trumps are funding an international campaign against Scotland’s economic interests and threatening lawsuits to frustrate important projects, it is surely inconceivable that SDI will now retain Trump as a member. If they do not act, then the First Minister should, without delay, instruct SDI to withdraw Donald Trump’s membership of the GlobalScot network.
UPDATE 0950 28 Feb
Thank you to Lorna Waite for analysing the list of GlobalScots and noting that women make up only around 6% of the membership.
