Trump Is Not Even Trying To Hide His Massive Corruption These Days

The following is just part of a posting by Dan Rather: 

As Donald Trump is telling American consumers that their children can make do with fewer toys this Christmas because his Grinch-like tariffs will make prices jump and supplies shrink, he is getting richer by the hour. Quite literally.

You may not have heard much about this, but Trump and his family are profiting from his presidency in unprecedented ways and in staggering amounts. And the deals they are making are ethically murky at best, corrupt at worst. Illegal? We may never know. Is it buying access to Trump? That’s what one Democratic senator calls it. If it walks like a duck …

While most American presidents have gone out of their way to avoid even a whiff of a conflict of interest or profiteering, Trump is brazenly embracing the practice.

Among other things, Trump is getting rich(er) off of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is a digital currency where transactions are made independent of traditional banks, using a decentralized system that has no restrictions or paper trail and in which confiscation is nearly impossible.

Once a derider of the industry as a place for “drug dealers and scammers,” Trump is now its biggest cheerleader and policymaker. He is directly benefiting from his administration’s loosening of crypto regulations.

Last fall, Trump and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric started a new cryptocurrency venture called World Liberty Financial (WLF). It has been highly lucrative for the Trump family, making them almost $3 billion in just six months! That’s according to a report by State Democracy Defenders Action, which also says the scheme now accounts for 40% of Trump’s net worth.

A large share of those billions has come from the sale of something called “meme coins.” One of Trump’s coins, named $TRUMP, was launched the Friday before he was inaugurated. The digital coins have no intrinsic value — just what someone is willing to pay for them. And folks are willing to pay a lot, if it means access to Trump.

Usually crypto transactions are anonymous, but WLF says they vet every buyer, which means they know who they are, which means Trump knows who is supporting him. WLF isn’t trying to hide the obvious quid pro quo. The company has made gaining access into a game.

On its website, WLF advertised recently that the 220 wallets, or accounts, worth the most would be invited to an “intimate private dinner” with the president. The top 25 wallets would also get a White House tour. The website has since scrubbed mention of the White House, but sales of the coins jumped 80% on this news. Keep in mind the Trump family collects a large percentage of each transaction.

Trump’s crypto enterprise is also allowing foreigners access to the president in new ways. By law, foreign nationals cannot donate to a presidential campaign or inauguration fund. But they can buy Trump’s meme coins. And boy are they. Bloomberg estimates that a majority of the top 220 wallets are owned by foreigners.

Foreigners buying influence is not simply hypothetical. After Chinese billionaire Justin Sun invested $75 million in Trump coins, an SEC investigation (begun during the Biden administration) into whether Sun had fraudulently inflated crypto prices was suddenly halted.

Many in finance and the government are raising the roof over Trump’s latest scheme. “It’s a black spot on our industry,” says crypto firm founder Andre Cronje, who has had his own run-ins with the SEC.

The Senate Subcommittee on Investigations is looking into possible conflicts of interest. “Donald Trump is selling cryptocurrency like snake oil in the Wild West, and he’s put a for sale sign on the White House for his meme coin,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee.

Senator Chris Murphy was even more blunt: “Donald Trump is essentially posting his Venmo for any billionaire CEO or foreign oligarch to cash in some favors by secretly sending him millions of dollars. The Trump meme coin is the single most corrupt act ever committed by a president.” Republican senators are silent.