In 2016, Trump Organization lawyer Alan Garten insisted that the business conducts thorough due diligence on its outside partners. “We do extensive vetting on everyone we do business with,” he told Forbes at the time. “We do background checks on an international level. We do background checks on a local level. We check every available database commonly used. We use outside experts who specialize in this area. And that’s in addition to looking at the deal itself. So extensive vetting goes on.”