Despite Deed, Trump Jr. Denies Family Owns East Tennessee Land

ROGERSVILLE, TN -- A quitclaim deed filed late last week makes the Trump Organization, along with President Donald Trump, the First Lady, the president's son Donald Jr. and his wife, Tennessee landowners, but Donald Jr. says it ain't so.

The Hawkins County Register of Deeds in Rogersville - a town along the Holston River about 65 miles northeast of Knoxville and one of the state's oldest cities - reported, with some glee, that Philip Henard, a third-generation local business owner, filed a deed transferring a small parcel in the Grandview Estates subdivision to the Trump Organization. The quitclaim deed listed the actual price of the sale as $0 and though some media reports are making some hay about language in the deed saying the transfer was made for "$10 and other good and valuable consideration," that is standard boilerplate language in Tennessee deeds and offers no information about the actual price. The first page of the deed makes it clear the actual price is $0.

Henard's motivation isn't entirely clear and he isn't being entirely forthcoming about how the deal went down, though there's strong speculation it's either a marketing ploy for the largely unsold 40 year old subdivision or a tactic to convince a local utility district to run a waterline.

Tuesday afternoon, Donald Trump Jr. denied the story.

A Trump Organization spokesperson denied the company's involvement in a statement to the Kingsport Times-News, as well, and Henard insists he dealt with a company representative named Mark Trent, but Mark Trent is a Century 21 real estate agent in Colonial Heights, Tenn., a town 35 miles from Rogersville, 618 miles from Trump Tower and eight miles from Boring (seriously).

With the deed properly registered, for now, the Trumps do in fact own the $7,800 parcel, their involvement, or lack thereof, notwithstanding. The property tax on the land is $49.

Donald Trump Jr. speaks during a fundraiser for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach's campaign for governor Tuesday, Nov. 28, 2017, in Overland Park, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)