Who Is Paying Rent at 555 California Street, San Francisco CA and Who Benefits

 I go for long walks everyday and listen to podcasts as I walk. Sometimes these podcasts give me something that stays with me for much of the day.

Today's entry comes from the most recent episode of Trump, Inc.

Most people, myself included, had no idea that Donald Trump owns thirty percent of an office building in San Francisco, California (pictured above). But apparently Donald Trump does. The building, 555 California Street, at least according to Forbes reporter Dan Alexander, rents office space to a Quatari sovereign wealth fund that sits, unused. Alexander did the math and figured out that the Trump organization would be paid about $150000 a month for their ownership of this space.

Lest you think that Donald Trump, being worth about 2.5 billion dollars, according to Alexander, would be unconcerned about such a relatively small sum, I would suggest he does. In 1990, Spy Magazine sent a check for less than $2.00 to a number of wealthy people to see if they would take the time to sign the check. As the story goes:

So, they created a fully funded and incorporated company called National Refund Clearinghouse, which allowed them to open a checking account. Then they drafted a letter explaining that the check was a refund for a small overcharge that had occurred in 1988—what the celebrities had been overcharged for was never mentioned. They sent the checks out (initially for $1.11) to 58 well-known people like Cher, Henry Kissinger, and, of course, Donald Trump. Of the 58, 26 cashed the checks—Donald included.

The magazine drafted a followup letter and checks for $0.64 to those 26 people to see who would take more free money. Thirteen—including Donald Trump—deposited the checks worth two quarters, a dime, and four pennies into their banks.

Then they went for one last score: in honor of those 13 people, 13 more checks for $0.13. Two people cashed them: a Saudi arms dealer named Adnan Khashoggi and Donald Trump.

It is not entirely clear just what effect a group of Quataris paying Donald Trump's company for office space might have on U.S. foreign policy toward Quatar and the Middle East. But it has taken a journalist almost four years of work to demonstrate that there is a financial relationship between the president and the government of Quatar.