Avid hunter Donald Trump Jr and his partners have purchased 3,900 acres of hunting land from the family of Austin Theriault, a Republican congressional candidate who lost the election to Democratic Jared Golden. According to records, the land sale was registered with the Aroostook County Registry of Deeds-South on November 15. The property was purchased by a Florida company that Trump Jr and his partners formed on November 5 called Trump Timberland & Wildlife Management LLC.
Donald Trump endorsed Austin Theriault in the most expensive House race in Maine history with an estimated $50 million spent by the candidates and outside groups but Austin’s rival Golden was declared the winner in the 2nd Congressional District contest.
The Austin family said the Trumps have been a great family to work with. “We hope that they’ll enjoy the property for as long and for as much as we did…it’s nice to have people who appreciate the outdoors, you know, start to buy property up here. There’s lots of it,” Austin’s father Steven Theriault said, as quoted by Boston Globe.
“I will say we’re pretty modest people here, so there’s probably a little more attention than we would have liked. But again, there’s lots of land up here for sale,” he said. “Maybe it’s an opportunity for people to start looking to Northern Maine as a place to live. Maybe for people that have property to sell, such as ourselves, it will create a different audience.”
Donald Trump Jr hunted in this region before, reports said. He shot a bull moose in Stacyville on a 2022 hund that was guided by a service based in Brownville.
The Maine Democrats questioned the deal and said: “Can you imagine the outrage from the GOP if the Golden family made a $1.3 million deal with the Bidens? They’d call it grifting and corruption, but after watching Austin’s campaign it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’d sell Maine out to the elites.”