By Ryan Nobles, Rebecca Kaplan and Rebecca Shabad —NBC News
Former Republican President Donald Trump received at least $7.8 million in payments from foreign governments during two of his four years in the White House, according to a report released Thursday by Democrats on the House Oversight Committee.
At least 20 foreign governments made payments to Trump's companies during the two-year period the committee reviewed, according to the report, reported by The New York Times and CNN.
Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a ranking member of the Oversight Committee, said in the foreword that the payments came from "some of the nastiest regimes in the world," with China being the main one. According to the report, the U.S. paid more than $5.5 million to Trump properties.
The former president also reportedly received payments from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, India and Afghanistan, according to the report. "This is a window into a much broader universe of foreign government spending," Raskin said Thursday on the floor of Congress.
Raskin added that this report shows that Trump violated the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution, which he said prohibits the president from accepting payments in money or gifts "from any kind of foreign governments and monarchs unless he obtains the consent of Congress to do so."
"Trump, when he was president, used his business entities to pocket millions of dollars from foreign states and royalty and never went to Congress to seek their consent," Raskin wrote.
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He added that the $7.8 million is "almost certainly only a fraction of Trump's harvest of illegal foreign state money, but this figure in itself is a scandal and a decisive stimulus to take action."
The payments were made to Trump properties, according to the report, including his hotels in Washington, D.C., Las Vegas and New York City. The report says that "these countries spent, often lavishly, on apartments and hotel stays at Donald Trump's estates, personally enriching former President Trump while making foreign policy decisions with far-reaching ramifications for the United States."
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Documents provided to the committee showed, for example, that Saudi Arabia and its royal family spent at least $615,400 on Trump properties during his administration, according to the report. The text also notes that, in the meantime, Trump signed an arms deal with the Saudi regime worth more than $100 billion in 000.
The information contained in the committee's report comes from documents from Mazars, Trump's former accounting firm, the obtaining of which led to years of court litigation by Democrats.
Trump's presidential campaign, which is seeking to be the Republican nominee for the White House this November, has not yet responded to NBC News' request for comment.