WASHINGTON Donald Trump s businesses received nearly $8 million in payments from foreign governments while Trump was president, according to new research by Democrats on Capitol Hill.

Unlike Republicans in their efforts to pin corruption on President Joe Biden, Democrats on the House oversight committee have receipts more than 400 pages of them that show payments to Trumps businesses from foreign officials likely seeking to influence the U.S. government.

Trump refused to divest from his business empire when he became president, creating an opportunity for anyone hoping to win his favor to put money straight into his pocket by staying at his hotels.

When he arrived in the White House, Trump was determined not only to keep this well-branded global corporate empire going but to seize a new and unprecedented opportunity to make it ever more lucrative for himself and his family, the oversight committees Democratic staff, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), said in their report.

Democrats and nonpartisan ethics experts have long argued that Trumps refusal to divest violated the U.S. Constitutions ban on presidents accepting gifts or emoluments from kings, princes or foreign states. Trump faced emoluments lawsuits, but the Supreme Court declared the cases moot after he left the White House in January 2021.

Meanwhile, since 2019, Democrats on the House oversight committee have sought records from Trumps accounting firm reflecting his foreign income. After a federal court awarded access in 2022, Democrats said theyd found records reflecting more than $750,000 in payments from foreign officials at Trumps hotel in Washington, D.C. Despite a court order requiring more material to be turned over, Republicans quietly shut down document production last year as they launched their quest for dirt on Biden.

Using documents obtained by the court order, plus already-public records, Democrats tallied $7.8 million in foreign payments from 20 countries during Trumps presidency. Most of the sum came from Chinese sources, including Chinas embassy in the U.S. and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a state-owned enterprise that leased property at Trump Tower in New York. Democrats suggest in their report that the payments from ICBC could have affected the Trump administrations decision not to sanction the bank for ties to North Korea in 2017.

Democrats stressed Thursday that their report was based on records from only two years of Trumps time in the White House, and that the $7.8 million is likely an undercount of the full money Trump received from foreign governments.

What we have is essentially the tip of the iceberg, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) told reporters. So this $7.8 million is just a small window obviously a significant amount of money, but a small window into what is likely a fairly large sum of money and gifts.

Though Democrats presented their report as a continuation of their investigation into Trumps violation of the Constitutions emoluments clause , its clearly intended as a rebuke of the impeachment inquiry against Biden. The House of Representatives could hold an impeachment vote sometime in the coming months.

Republicans have accused Biden of improperly benefiting from his son Hunter Bidens business deals, through which the younger Biden received millions of dollars from foreign nationals in China and Ukraine during and after Joe Bidens time as vice president. Republicans have said Joe Biden may have accepted foreign bribes through his sons work.