Are we living in a new age of government corruption? I think so. Why won’t the Republicans in congress do something about it? Where’s the outrage?
As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests
WASHINGTON — When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.
Thirty-one years later, after dinner at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about first lady Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.
The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and is opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.
Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.
And Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Trump personally.
By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals.
….
He’s not trying to give the appearance that he’s doing the right thing anymore,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21 and a longtime advocate for government ethics. “There’s nothing in the history of America that approaches the use of the presidency for massive personal gain. Nothing.”
See link for the full article. There’s a lot more there. https://archive.li/WYBAz
- txdot-guy
- 05-26-2025, 11:26 AM
- farmstud60
- 05-26-2025, 11:58 AM
Sigh, the Hillary Clinton Scandal was that she was paid off by the Tysons in Arkansas for favors. She was guilty, but the lying Democrat press corps didn't question the Clinton Lie.
The corruption which many would argue would be the treasonous lies of Biden's staff that the 25th amendment didn't come in to play has Biden was not actually running the country has destroyed any credibility the press or Democrats have on the issue.
The corruption which many would argue would be the treasonous lies of Biden's staff that the 25th amendment didn't come in to play has Biden was not actually running the country has destroyed any credibility the press or Democrats have on the issue.
- Yssup Rider
- 05-26-2025, 01:11 PM
Sigh, the Hillary Clinton Scandal was that she was paid off by the Tysons in Arkansas for favors. She was guilty, but the lying Democrat press corps didn't question the Clinton Lie.What does this have to do with Trump, and your apparent condoning of his behavior?
The corruption which many would argue would be the treasonous lies of Biden's staff that the 25th amendment didn't come in to play has Biden was not actually running the country has destroyed any credibility the press or Democrats have on the issue. Originally Posted by farmstud60
You called Biden corrupt nonstop. Still doing it, Jackie.
This thread is about Trump. You wanna use whataboutism to justify ignoring the very horror you accuse everybody but Trump of? OF COURSE you do! LOLLING!
However, your reply pretty much affirms the OP.
Corruption/Hypocrisy/APATHY
Yup, on a level never before seen in the history of this great nation.
- eccieuser9500
- 05-26-2025, 01:38 PM
What does this have to do with Trump, and your apparent condoning of his behavior?
You called Biden corrupt nonstop. Still doing it, Jackie.
This thread is about Trump. You wanna use whataboutism to justify ignoring the very horror you accuse everybody but Trump of? OF COURSE you do! LOLLING!
However, your reply pretty much affirms the OP.
Corruption/Hypocrisy/APATHY
Yup, on a level never before seen in the history of this great nation. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
That is a simple farmer's pathetic deflection. Another, whataboutism that doesn't even come close.
This peice of shit orange turd is destroying the country.
[D]ump Has Dropped the Pretense of Ethics
Free plane, crypto dinner, foreign deals: the first family doesn’t seem to care how corrupt it looks.
Do Donald [D]ump and his family “actually give a fuck” about appearing to profit from his presidency? Evidence is mounting that they don’t.
Mother Jones reported yesterday on various ways that corporations, foreign governments, and random rich people with agendas are giving money and other benefits to the first family—and noted that the president and his kin have largely dispensed with even their first-term pretense of adherence to ethical norms.
This view was seemingly bolstered by Arthur Schwartz, an adviser to Donald [D]ump Jr., who, while explaining his unwillingness to address my questions about conflicts resulting from Trump Jr.’s business ventures, texted: “Write your ridiculous story. Literally no one cares . . . We don’t actually give a fuck.”
The president indeed did not appear overly troubled by extensive bipartisan criticism when he accepted, on Wednesday, a plane from Qatar (a country where his business just cut a deal to develop a golf resort) to use as Air Force One. And he ignored critics accusing him of corruption again on Thursday, when he hosted a dinner at his Virginia golf course rewarding 220 of the largest purchasers of his $TRUMP meme cryptocurrency, including dinner guests who said they hoped to use the access to influence him.
“They really don’t seem to be making much of an effort to show they care about appearance of conflicts of interest or corruption,” Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a recent interview.
As brazen as [D]ump’s recent actions may appear, he nevertheless has continued to argue they are not corrupt. [D]ump this week threatened to sue ABC News again for reporting, he said, “that Qatar is giving ME a FREE Boeing 747 Airplane”—[D]ump insists the plane is going to the Department of Defense, rather than to him personally, despite having repeatedly said he plans to eventually transfer it to his presidential library.
White House spokespersons, too, continue to profess indignation about media reports suggesting that there is anything untoward about the president taking gifts or money from people attempting to influence him. “It’s absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. “This president was incredibly successful before giving it all up to serve our country publicly.”
The White House has claimed [D]ump’s businesses don’t create conflicts of interest because “the president’s assets are in a trust managed by his children.”
But these arguments are belied by [D]ump’s failure to limit the appearance or reality that he is using his power to reward people who help enrich him. [D]ump continues to benefit from the family companies now run by his sons, and ethics experts note that because [D]ump has not set up a blind trust, the president can keep track of who is paying or investing in those firms in hopes of influencing him.
The [D]ump Organization and White House have declined to renew modest ethics restrictions they imposed during [D]ump’s first term. In 2017, the Trump Organization, run by Eric and Donald [D]ump Jr., said it would not ink foreign deals during the [D]ump presidency. This time, the company is reaching foreign deals. And while they claim to be avoiding agreements with foreign governments, the [D]umps are making development deals that rely on approval by foreign governments. The [D]ump family also appears to be benefiting from a plan by a state-backed United Arab Emirates firm to use a Trump-affiliated digital coin in a multibillion-dollar deal.
Donald [D]ump Jr., speaking Wednesday in at an economic conference in, of all places, Qatar, elaborated on this decision.
“In the first term, we actually said we’re not going to do any foreign deals,” he said. “The reality is, it didn’t stop the media from constantly saying you’re profiteering anyway. We’re like, we stopped entirely, even the deals that were totally legit, it didn’t stop the insanity. So this time around, we said, ‘Hey, we’re going to play by the rules,’ but we’re not going to go so far as to stymie our business forever, lock ourselves in a proverbial padded room, because it almost doesn’t matter—they’re going to hit you no matter what.”
This comment raises questions about what [D]ump Jr. thinks padded rooms are used for, and what not “totally legit” deals he may have in mind. But it also suggests that he understands the purpose of ethical norms to be avoidance of criticism. Critics of the first family’s mix of business and politics, by contrast, are concerned about actual corruption occurring.
The president and his family hear those concerns. But they don’t seem to give a fuck.
His bootlicking, brainwashed and blatantly buttheaded bafoonish followers are worshipping the golden calf. So-called "Christian" nationalists.
- Tiny
- 05-26-2025, 02:23 PM
Some of the biggest crony capitalists in Vietnam are related to the U.S. president. Billy Beer and Hillary's futures trading are peanuts in comparison.
This is from an article about a $1.5 billion golf and real estate development the Trump Organization is developing alongside a Vietnamese partner,
...To fast-track the Trump development, Vietnam has ignored its own laws, legal experts said, granting concessions more generous than what even the most connected locals receive. Vietnamese officials, in a letter obtained by The New York Times, explicitly stated that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”
And Vietnamese officials have waved the development along in a moment of high-stakes diplomacy. They face intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off President Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30 percent of Vietnam’s exports.
Eric Trump, the president’s second son, stands at the center of the drama. Mr. Trump was in Vietnam to break ground for the golf project on Wednesday, less than a year after meeting a local building partner, Dang Thanh Tam. Inside a tent with a gold facade, Mr. Trump told guests, including the country’s prime minister, that “the Trump family is going to make you very, very proud.”
...With trade negotiations intensifying, Vietnamese officials have allowed the Trump project to break ground without completing at least a half-dozen legally required steps, from securing all the land and financing to conducting environmental reviews.
The process usually takes two to four years. But records show that initial planning documents were filed only three months before Wednesday’s event, which was held on newly leveled land under an archway announcing “THE GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY OF TRUMP INTERNATIONAL, HUNG YEN.”
...Residents, who gathered outside the development site to watch the groundbreaking, were held at a distance by the police. Many worry that their livelihoods and land will soon be taken. Fifty years after the end of a brutal war with the United States, they say they fear becoming collateral damage as the new move-fast-and-defy-the-rules approach of Trumpism marches on...
At town-hall meetings in early April, officials told hundreds of residents that the best they could expect was about half of what their land would have sold for even before the golf project was announced in October.
Amid a chorus of outrage at one meeting, nearly everyone stormed out. Word of the offered rate spread through streets and into the fields. Opposition has hardened as farmers fear losing investments in saplings that take years to mature, and the security that the land has provided for generations.
“They’re not listening to us,” Le Thi Thanh, 57, said on a recent fever-hot afternoon, squatting to graft young custard apple trees. “They just come here and impose their will.”
Vietnam’s construction approval process is supposed to begin with independent scrutiny in the public interest at the district and provincial level. In reality, as interviews and government documents show, little of that happened and planning laws have been shoved aside.
After the March 20 letter from provincial officials that said the project needed special treatment, the government cut short public comment and did not follow the usual rules on using public funds for preliminary research, documents show. Legal experts said the project was in conflict with the province’s housing master plan. The entire complex, with Trump-designed villas and 36 holes of golf in one of four development zones, would add 35,000 residents, theme parks and an urban commercial district.
On top of that, the project is planned in a riverfront area that flooded during a typhoon last year, and the province is dotted with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War. A 200-pound bomb was discovered six months ago.
Nonetheless, on May 15, just over three months after the first official filing, Vietnam’s central government ended the planning process early, to allow for investment and a groundbreaking event that would — as the letter in March had requested — align with Eric Trump’s availability and avoid “missing the window to capitalize on the support of the Donald Trump administration.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...f-project.html
What happened to the good old days, when Tea Party Republicans opposed aggressive use of eminent domain? I guess that all went out the window when a Republican real estate developer became president.
So does this look more like extortion or bribery? You threaten to impose a 46% tariff on Vietnam. On low value products like clothes that will never be made in America. But maybe the Vietnamese will get out of it if they help the president's family make a mint.
I don't blame Vietnam one damn bit by the way. You've gotta do what you gotta do.
This is from an article about a $1.5 billion golf and real estate development the Trump Organization is developing alongside a Vietnamese partner,
...To fast-track the Trump development, Vietnam has ignored its own laws, legal experts said, granting concessions more generous than what even the most connected locals receive. Vietnamese officials, in a letter obtained by The New York Times, explicitly stated that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”
And Vietnamese officials have waved the development along in a moment of high-stakes diplomacy. They face intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off President Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30 percent of Vietnam’s exports.
Eric Trump, the president’s second son, stands at the center of the drama. Mr. Trump was in Vietnam to break ground for the golf project on Wednesday, less than a year after meeting a local building partner, Dang Thanh Tam. Inside a tent with a gold facade, Mr. Trump told guests, including the country’s prime minister, that “the Trump family is going to make you very, very proud.”
...With trade negotiations intensifying, Vietnamese officials have allowed the Trump project to break ground without completing at least a half-dozen legally required steps, from securing all the land and financing to conducting environmental reviews.
The process usually takes two to four years. But records show that initial planning documents were filed only three months before Wednesday’s event, which was held on newly leveled land under an archway announcing “THE GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY OF TRUMP INTERNATIONAL, HUNG YEN.”
...Residents, who gathered outside the development site to watch the groundbreaking, were held at a distance by the police. Many worry that their livelihoods and land will soon be taken. Fifty years after the end of a brutal war with the United States, they say they fear becoming collateral damage as the new move-fast-and-defy-the-rules approach of Trumpism marches on...
At town-hall meetings in early April, officials told hundreds of residents that the best they could expect was about half of what their land would have sold for even before the golf project was announced in October.
Amid a chorus of outrage at one meeting, nearly everyone stormed out. Word of the offered rate spread through streets and into the fields. Opposition has hardened as farmers fear losing investments in saplings that take years to mature, and the security that the land has provided for generations.
“They’re not listening to us,” Le Thi Thanh, 57, said on a recent fever-hot afternoon, squatting to graft young custard apple trees. “They just come here and impose their will.”
Vietnam’s construction approval process is supposed to begin with independent scrutiny in the public interest at the district and provincial level. In reality, as interviews and government documents show, little of that happened and planning laws have been shoved aside.
After the March 20 letter from provincial officials that said the project needed special treatment, the government cut short public comment and did not follow the usual rules on using public funds for preliminary research, documents show. Legal experts said the project was in conflict with the province’s housing master plan. The entire complex, with Trump-designed villas and 36 holes of golf in one of four development zones, would add 35,000 residents, theme parks and an urban commercial district.
On top of that, the project is planned in a riverfront area that flooded during a typhoon last year, and the province is dotted with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War. A 200-pound bomb was discovered six months ago.
Nonetheless, on May 15, just over three months after the first official filing, Vietnam’s central government ended the planning process early, to allow for investment and a groundbreaking event that would — as the letter in March had requested — align with Eric Trump’s availability and avoid “missing the window to capitalize on the support of the Donald Trump administration.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...f-project.html
What happened to the good old days, when Tea Party Republicans opposed aggressive use of eminent domain? I guess that all went out the window when a Republican real estate developer became president.
So does this look more like extortion or bribery? You threaten to impose a 46% tariff on Vietnam. On low value products like clothes that will never be made in America. But maybe the Vietnamese will get out of it if they help the president's family make a mint.
I don't blame Vietnam one damn bit by the way. You've gotta do what you gotta do.
- farmstud60
- 05-26-2025, 02:57 PM
What does this have to do with Trump, and your apparent condoning of his behavior?
You called Biden corrupt nonstop. Still doing it, Jackie.
This thread is about Trump. You wanna use whataboutism to justify ignoring the very horror you accuse everybody but Trump of? OF COURSE you do! LOLLING!
However, your reply pretty much affirms the OP.
Corruption/Hypocrisy/APATHY
Yup, on a level never before seen in the history of this great nation. Originally Posted by Yssup Rider
Democrats commit crimes and corruption but they never get prosecuted for it, so therefore Republicans just ignore anything the Democrats charge Republicans of doing as Democrats already do it.
- eccieuser9500
- 05-26-2025, 03:32 PM
Some of the biggest crony capitalists in Vietnam are related to the U.S. president. Billy Beer and Hillary's futures trading are peanuts in comparison.Google AI
This is from an article about a $1.5 billion golf and real estate development the Trump Organization is developing alongside a Vietnamese partner,
...To fast-track the Trump development, Vietnam has ignored its own laws, legal experts said, granting concessions more generous than what even the most connected locals receive. Vietnamese officials, in a letter obtained by The New York Times, explicitly stated that the project required special support from the top ranks of the Vietnamese government because it was “receiving special attention from the Trump administration and President Donald Trump personally.”
And Vietnamese officials have waved the development along in a moment of high-stakes diplomacy. They face intense pressure to strike a trade deal that would head off President Trump’s threat of steep tariffs, which would hit about 30 percent of Vietnam’s exports.
Eric Trump, the president’s second son, stands at the center of the drama. Mr. Trump was in Vietnam to break ground for the golf project on Wednesday, less than a year after meeting a local building partner, Dang Thanh Tam. Inside a tent with a gold facade, Mr. Trump told guests, including the country’s prime minister, that “the Trump family is going to make you very, very proud.”
...With trade negotiations intensifying, Vietnamese officials have allowed the Trump project to break ground without completing at least a half-dozen legally required steps, from securing all the land and financing to conducting environmental reviews.
The process usually takes two to four years. But records show that initial planning documents were filed only three months before Wednesday’s event, which was held on newly leveled land under an archway announcing “THE GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY OF TRUMP INTERNATIONAL, HUNG YEN.”
...Residents, who gathered outside the development site to watch the groundbreaking, were held at a distance by the police. Many worry that their livelihoods and land will soon be taken. Fifty years after the end of a brutal war with the United States, they say they fear becoming collateral damage as the new move-fast-and-defy-the-rules approach of Trumpism marches on...
At town-hall meetings in early April, officials told hundreds of residents that the best they could expect was about half of what their land would have sold for even before the golf project was announced in October.
Amid a chorus of outrage at one meeting, nearly everyone stormed out. Word of the offered rate spread through streets and into the fields. Opposition has hardened as farmers fear losing investments in saplings that take years to mature, and the security that the land has provided for generations.
“They’re not listening to us,” Le Thi Thanh, 57, said on a recent fever-hot afternoon, squatting to graft young custard apple trees. “They just come here and impose their will.”
Vietnam’s construction approval process is supposed to begin with independent scrutiny in the public interest at the district and provincial level. In reality, as interviews and government documents show, little of that happened and planning laws have been shoved aside.
After the March 20 letter from provincial officials that said the project needed special treatment, the government cut short public comment and did not follow the usual rules on using public funds for preliminary research, documents show. Legal experts said the project was in conflict with the province’s housing master plan. The entire complex, with Trump-designed villas and 36 holes of golf in one of four development zones, would add 35,000 residents, theme parks and an urban commercial district.
On top of that, the project is planned in a riverfront area that flooded during a typhoon last year, and the province is dotted with unexploded ordnance from the Vietnam War. A 200-pound bomb was discovered six months ago.
Nonetheless, on May 15, just over three months after the first official filing, Vietnam’s central government ended the planning process early, to allow for investment and a groundbreaking event that would — as the letter in March had requested — align with Eric Trump’s availability and avoid “missing the window to capitalize on the support of the Donald Trump administration.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/25/w...f-project.html
What happened to the good old days, when Tea Party Republicans opposed aggressive use of eminent domain? I guess that all went out the window when a Republican real estate developer became president.
So does this look more like extortion or bribery? You threaten to impose a 46% tariff on Vietnam. On low value products like clothes that will never be made in America. But maybe the Vietnamese will get out of it if they help the president's family make a mint.
I don't blame Vietnam one damn bit by the way. You've gotta do what you gotta do. Originally Posted by Tiny
The Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a one-party socialist republic with a unicameral parliament, the National Assembly. The National Assembly, a 500-delegate body, is the highest organ of state power and is responsible for electing the president, prime minister, and other key officials. The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the leading political force and exerts significant influence on all branches of government.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/vie...dom-world/2024
Vietnam is a one-party state, dominated for decades by the ruling Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). Although some independent candidates are technically allowed to run in legislative elections, most are banned in practice. Freedom of expression, religious freedom, and civil society activism are tightly restricted. The authorities have increasingly cracked down on citizens’ use of social media and the internet to voice dissent and share uncensored information.Of what Crony Capitalists do you speak?
- txdot-guy
- 05-26-2025, 03:48 PM
Google AIThe same ones that are in China and Russia.
https://freedomhouse.org/country/vie...dom-world/2024
Of what Crony Capitalists do you speak? Originally Posted by eccieuser9500
- eccieuser9500
- 05-26-2025, 03:51 PM
- Levianon17
- 05-26-2025, 03:58 PM
Are we living in a new age of government corruption? I think so. Why won’t the Republicans in congress do something about it? Where’s the outrage?It's not a new age, Government has always been corrupted
As Trumps Monetize Presidency, Profits Outstrip Protests
WASHINGTON — When Hillary Clinton was first lady, a furor erupted over reports that she had once made $100,000 from a $1,000 investment in cattle futures. Even though it had happened a dozen years before her husband became president, it became a scandal that lasted weeks and forced the White House to initiate a review.
Thirty-one years later, after dinner at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, Jeff Bezos agreed to finance a promotional film about first lady Melania Trump that will reportedly put $28 million directly in her pocket — 280 times the Clinton lucre and in this case from a person with a vested interest in policies set by her husband’s government. Scandal? Furor? Washington moved on while barely taking notice.
The Trumps are hardly the first presidential family to profit from their time in power, but they have done more to monetize the presidency than anyone who has ever occupied the White House. The scale and the scope of the presidential mercantilism has been breathtaking. The Trump family and its business partners have collected $320 million in fees from a new cryptocurrency, brokered overseas real estate deals worth billions of dollars and is opening an exclusive club in Washington called the Executive Branch charging $500,000 apiece to join, all in the past few months alone.
Just last week, Qatar handed over a luxury jet meant for Trump’s use not just in his official capacity but also for his presidential library after he leaves office. Experts have valued the plane, formally donated to the Air Force, at $200 million, more than all of the foreign gifts bestowed on all previous American presidents combined.
And Trump hosted an exclusive dinner at his Virginia club for 220 investors in the $TRUMP cryptocurrency that he started days before taking office in January. Access was openly sold based on how much money they chipped in — not to a campaign account but to a business that benefits Trump personally.
By conventional Washington standards, according to students of official graft, the still-young Trump administration is a candidate for the most brazen use of government office in American history, perhaps eclipsing even Teapot Dome, Watergate and other famous scandals.
….
He’s not trying to give the appearance that he’s doing the right thing anymore,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21 and a longtime advocate for government ethics. “There’s nothing in the history of America that approaches the use of the presidency for massive personal gain. Nothing.”
See link for the full article. There’s a lot more there. https://archive.li/WYBAz Originally Posted by txdot-guy
- Tiny
- 05-26-2025, 07:30 PM
- eccieuser9500
- 05-26-2025, 07:33 PM
- Tiny
- 05-26-2025, 07:45 PM
The retarded one. Not the dumb one.Nope. The Donald escaped service in Vietnam because of bone spurs, and therefore probably does not have any children or other relations there.
I thought you were speaking of the Viet Namese. Originally Posted by eccieuser9500
But who knows. It's possible that Trump's lovechild was Vietnamese:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/arti...ney-trial.html
- eccieuser9500
- 05-26-2025, 08:01 PM
Where are all those bitches bitching about influence peddling? Sick!
‘Roadmap for corruption’: [D]ump[ster] dive into cryptocurrency raises ethics alarm
The president’s hawking of $[D]ump memecoin has sparked a firestorm of criticism over potential influence buying
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ruption-ethics
Donald [D]ump’s push to sharply ease oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, while he and his sons have fast expanded crypto ventures that have reaped billions of dollars from investors including foreign ones, is raising alarm about ethical and legal issues.
Watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at [D]ump for hawking his own meme coin, $[D]ump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting a 22 May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $[D]ump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers.
To attend the two events, the $[D]ump buyers spent about $148m, which will benefit [D]ump and partners, according to the crypto firm Inca Digital.
Further, the [D]ump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial that launched last fall, which his two oldest sons have promoted hard, was tapped this month to play a key part in a $2bn investment deal by an Abu Dhabi financial fund in the crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to US money laundering and other violations.
The new WLF deal was announced at an Abu Dhabi crypto conference that drew Eric [D]ump two weeks before [D]ump’s mid-May visit to the United Arab Emirates capital, sparking other concerns of improper foreign influence and ethics issues.
[D]ump’s ardent pursuit of crypto fortunes was highlighted in a report last month from the watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Fund that estimated his crypto ventures as of mid-March to be worth about $2.9bn. That is a striking sum since [D]ump’s crypto ventures are less than a year old.
Senate Democrats led by Jeff Merkley of Oregon and the minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, introduced a bill this month that has garnered sizable Democratic backing to block [D]ump from using his office to benefit his crypto businesses.
Watchdogs say [D]ump is exploiting his office for personal gain in unprecedented and dangerous ways.
“There is the appearance if not the reality of corruption in the upcoming dinner with [D]ump on the 22nd at his Virginia golf club for the 220 biggest [D]ump meme coin buyers and the private reception he’s promised for the top 25 buyers, plus the separate $2bn deal between World Liberty Financial and the Abu Dhabi investment vehicle,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics adviser to George W Bush who co-authored the Democracy Defenders Fund report.
Other experts are equally troubled by [D]ump’s manifest conflicts.
“[D]ump is marketing access to himself as a way to profit his memecoin,” said the Columbia Law professor Richard Briffault, an expert on government ethics. Briffault added: “People are paying to meet [D]ump and he’s the regulator in chief. It’s doubly corrupt. This is unprecedented. I don’t think there’s been anything like this in American history.”
Such concerns were fueled when [D]ump quickly chose crypto industry allies to run the Securities and Exchange Commission and as his “czar” for crypto and AI. Among other moves, the SEC has dropped or put on hold investigations and prosecutions of over a dozen crypto firms.
Fears of possible corruption have also focused on Chinese-born Justin Sun, the biggest investor in [D]ump’s crypto ventures. Sun bought about $20m of $[D]ump to become its top purchaser before the dinner on the 22nd which he attended. Sun previously invested at least $75m in World Liberty Financial to become its lead investor and an adviser.
Sun may also be benefiting from the SEC’s laxer oversight. Sun was sued by the SEC in 2023 for fraudulent market manipulation and other allegations of misconduct involving three other crypto enterprises of his, including the Tron Foundation.
As the SEC eased its crypto oversight, the agency earlier this year paused its case against Sun, sparking concerns that [D]ump’s financial ties to Sun might have influenced the agency’s decision, a matter that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and the Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters of California raised in a letter to the SEC last month.
The SEC has reportedly been holding talks with Sun about settling the charges, and the agency’s chairman told a congressional hearing on 20 May that he knew nothing about Sun’s case.
Other warnings about [D]ump’s crypto dealings have also been fueled by recent scandals that have plagued crypto businesses, many of which are known for their opaque operations and some illicit dealings including ones tied to North Korean hackers that helped fund the country’s nuclear and military programs.
Crypto critics were dismayed at a justice department memo in April announcing the closure of a national cryptocurrency enforcement team that was established in 2022, which had brought some major crypto cases against North Korean hackers and other crypto criminals.
The memo stressed the justice department was not a “digital assets regulator” and in a political twist lambasted the Biden administration for its “reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution”. The memo noted that a January pro-crypto [D]ump executive order spurred its decision.
For their part, [D]ump, his family and White House press statements have dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest or ethical improprieties with [D]ump promoting his crypto business while in office.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters before the dinner that [D]ump was attending it in his “personal time” and it was not a White House event, but declined to release names of the attenders.
The [D]ump Organization in January said that the president’s business interests including his assets and investments, would be placed in a trust that his children would manage and that [D]ump would not get involved in decision-making or daily operations. [D]ump’s family also tapped a lawyer to serve as an ethics adviser.
Those pledges have been overshadowed by [D]ump’s enthusiasm for his digital currencies. In a harbinger of [D]ump’s two crypto events on the 22nd, in March he hosted the first-ever White House “crypto summit” for a couple of dozen industry leaders where he pledged to end the Biden administration’s “war on crypto”.
“[D]ump’s crypto schemes are profoundly corrupt,” Merkley told the Guardian. “He’s selling access to his administration and enriching himself in the process.”
In response, Merkley and Schumer introduced the End Crypto Corruption Act, which 20 other Democrats have endorsed.
Merkley stressed that the bill would “not only crack down on this corruption but also prevent other officials – like members of Congress and [D]ump’s billionaire sidekick Elon Musk – from betraying public trust”.
‘Roadmap for corruption’: [D]ump[ster] dive into cryptocurrency raises ethics alarm
The president’s hawking of $[D]ump memecoin has sparked a firestorm of criticism over potential influence buying
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ruption-ethics
Donald [D]ump’s push to sharply ease oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, while he and his sons have fast expanded crypto ventures that have reaped billions of dollars from investors including foreign ones, is raising alarm about ethical and legal issues.
Watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at [D]ump for hawking his own meme coin, $[D]ump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting a 22 May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $[D]ump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers.
To attend the two events, the $[D]ump buyers spent about $148m, which will benefit [D]ump and partners, according to the crypto firm Inca Digital.
Further, the [D]ump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial that launched last fall, which his two oldest sons have promoted hard, was tapped this month to play a key part in a $2bn investment deal by an Abu Dhabi financial fund in the crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to US money laundering and other violations.
The new WLF deal was announced at an Abu Dhabi crypto conference that drew Eric [D]ump two weeks before [D]ump’s mid-May visit to the United Arab Emirates capital, sparking other concerns of improper foreign influence and ethics issues.
[D]ump’s ardent pursuit of crypto fortunes was highlighted in a report last month from the watchdog group State Democracy Defenders Fund that estimated his crypto ventures as of mid-March to be worth about $2.9bn. That is a striking sum since [D]ump’s crypto ventures are less than a year old.
Senate Democrats led by Jeff Merkley of Oregon and the minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, introduced a bill this month that has garnered sizable Democratic backing to block [D]ump from using his office to benefit his crypto businesses.
Watchdogs say [D]ump is exploiting his office for personal gain in unprecedented and dangerous ways.
“There is the appearance if not the reality of corruption in the upcoming dinner with [D]ump on the 22nd at his Virginia golf club for the 220 biggest [D]ump meme coin buyers and the private reception he’s promised for the top 25 buyers, plus the separate $2bn deal between World Liberty Financial and the Abu Dhabi investment vehicle,” said Richard Painter, a former White House ethics adviser to George W Bush who co-authored the Democracy Defenders Fund report.
Other experts are equally troubled by [D]ump’s manifest conflicts.
“[D]ump is marketing access to himself as a way to profit his memecoin,” said the Columbia Law professor Richard Briffault, an expert on government ethics. Briffault added: “People are paying to meet [D]ump and he’s the regulator in chief. It’s doubly corrupt. This is unprecedented. I don’t think there’s been anything like this in American history.”
Such concerns were fueled when [D]ump quickly chose crypto industry allies to run the Securities and Exchange Commission and as his “czar” for crypto and AI. Among other moves, the SEC has dropped or put on hold investigations and prosecutions of over a dozen crypto firms.
Fears of possible corruption have also focused on Chinese-born Justin Sun, the biggest investor in [D]ump’s crypto ventures. Sun bought about $20m of $[D]ump to become its top purchaser before the dinner on the 22nd which he attended. Sun previously invested at least $75m in World Liberty Financial to become its lead investor and an adviser.
Sun may also be benefiting from the SEC’s laxer oversight. Sun was sued by the SEC in 2023 for fraudulent market manipulation and other allegations of misconduct involving three other crypto enterprises of his, including the Tron Foundation.
As the SEC eased its crypto oversight, the agency earlier this year paused its case against Sun, sparking concerns that [D]ump’s financial ties to Sun might have influenced the agency’s decision, a matter that Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and the Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters of California raised in a letter to the SEC last month.
The SEC has reportedly been holding talks with Sun about settling the charges, and the agency’s chairman told a congressional hearing on 20 May that he knew nothing about Sun’s case.
Other warnings about [D]ump’s crypto dealings have also been fueled by recent scandals that have plagued crypto businesses, many of which are known for their opaque operations and some illicit dealings including ones tied to North Korean hackers that helped fund the country’s nuclear and military programs.
Crypto critics were dismayed at a justice department memo in April announcing the closure of a national cryptocurrency enforcement team that was established in 2022, which had brought some major crypto cases against North Korean hackers and other crypto criminals.
The memo stressed the justice department was not a “digital assets regulator” and in a political twist lambasted the Biden administration for its “reckless strategy of regulation by prosecution”. The memo noted that a January pro-crypto [D]ump executive order spurred its decision.
For their part, [D]ump, his family and White House press statements have dismissed concerns about conflicts of interest or ethical improprieties with [D]ump promoting his crypto business while in office.
The press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters before the dinner that [D]ump was attending it in his “personal time” and it was not a White House event, but declined to release names of the attenders.
The [D]ump Organization in January said that the president’s business interests including his assets and investments, would be placed in a trust that his children would manage and that [D]ump would not get involved in decision-making or daily operations. [D]ump’s family also tapped a lawyer to serve as an ethics adviser.
Those pledges have been overshadowed by [D]ump’s enthusiasm for his digital currencies. In a harbinger of [D]ump’s two crypto events on the 22nd, in March he hosted the first-ever White House “crypto summit” for a couple of dozen industry leaders where he pledged to end the Biden administration’s “war on crypto”.
“[D]ump’s crypto schemes are profoundly corrupt,” Merkley told the Guardian. “He’s selling access to his administration and enriching himself in the process.”
In response, Merkley and Schumer introduced the End Crypto Corruption Act, which 20 other Democrats have endorsed.
Merkley stressed that the bill would “not only crack down on this corruption but also prevent other officials – like members of Congress and [D]ump’s billionaire sidekick Elon Musk – from betraying public trust”.
- txdot-guy
- 05-26-2025, 08:20 PM
It's not a new age, Government has always been corrupted Originally Posted by Levianon17
Very true Originally Posted by TinyGovernment is a human run enterprise. Humans can be selfish cunts. I.E. government can be corrupted. That’s true for most human organizations. What makes the Trump administration different is the size, scope and brazenness involved.
If we want government to run better we need a leader that won’t pardon those convicted of bribery and other corruption.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-par...4c434e5c75e406
Trump pardons ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich 5 years after commuting his sentence
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/tr...ribery-scheme/
Trump Blasts ‘Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ’ While Pardoning Sheriff Convicted in Bribery Scheme
Or fires the inspector generals who might have opposed his blatant corruption.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-f...al-60-minutes/
Watchdogs fired by Trump raise alarms over future of independent government oversight
Or ignores the law when he doesn’t like it.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com.../120549698.cms
Why does Trump feel he can ignore the law without consequences?