According to a report distributed by Reuters, public pension funds in at least seven states invest millions of dollars in the CIM Group that owns the Trump SoHo Hotel in New York City and pays a Trump company to operate it. CalPERS paid CIM $1,722,418 in management fees for the first three months of 2017.
Two public interest advocacy groups, Free Speech for People and the Courage Campaign, are organizing a campaign to get the pensions to divest from the Trump projects. They charge “The money used for this investment comes from mandatory deductions from the paychecks of public employees. These employees are thus forced to indirectly subsidize President Trump beyond the Constitution’s mandate of a fixed salary.”