The New York Times continues its valuable investigative reporting on the corruption that is endemic to the Trump Crime Family (gift link):
A contest of sorts has played out across Europe, the United States and the Middle East in recent days as President Trump’s two older sons have pursued a blitz of family moneymaking ventures capitalizing on their father’s name and power, each seemingly trying to outdo the other.
It is a rush to cash in that involves billions of dollars with few precedents in American history.
A luxury hotel in Dubai. A second high-end residential tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Two cryptocurrency ventures based in the United States. A new golf course and villa complex in Qatar. And a new private club in Washington. In many cases these new deals promoted over the last week will personally benefit not only Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., but also President Trump himself. [snip]
The marathon of deal making has been so rapid that many elements have drawn limited public attention in the United States, despite most of it being out in the open. That is in part because the sons appeared before mostly fawning crowds but also because President Trump, his appointees and his billionaire adviser Elon Musk were making headlines with their own steady stream of norm-breaking controversies.
“There’s nothing like it,” said Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University historian who has written books on Presidents Ronald Reagan and Gerald R. Ford, addressing the financial conflicts of interest that have emerged in Mr. Trump’s second term.
Both Trump sons are involved in a wide range of family business ventures. Eric Trump, the president’s middle son, runs the Trump Organization, the main family business, which specializes in real estate. He also serves on the board of a holding company that oversees World Liberty Financial, the family’s crypto firm, and recently joined forces with his older brother, Donald Trump Jr., to start a Bitcoin mining operation, American Bitcoin.
The White House has said there are no ethics issues because Mr. Trump’s sons run the businesses. “The president’s assets are in a trust managed by his children,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said. “There are no conflicts of interest.”
But Mr. Trump’s financial disclosure report, which he is legally required to file, shows that he still personally benefits financially from most of these ventures... (our emphasis)
We'll stop there so you can go read the rest of the article, which details how profits from the "deal making" benefit the convicted fraudster Malignant Fascist himself. That many of these deals involve the ultimate scam that is cryptocurrency fits nicely into the MF's modus operandi. Other deals reek of thinly disguised "pay to play" schemes (i.e., bribes). None of this includes the on- going scams and schemes and influence-buying associated with the MF (Open Secrets has the details as of 2024).
We saw in the first Malignant Fascist regime that the Emoluments Clause meant nothing to this crime family. In 2024, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee identified $7,886,072 that the MF accepted from foreign governments in violation of the Emoluments Clause, adding "...this is a fraction of your unconstitutional collections from foreign governments and that we do not yet know the complete sum of foreign money you accepted while in office..." Surprisingly, their strongly- worded letter got no response from then- candidate MF.
If anyone is under the illusion that something will be done to stop this blatantly corrupt "rush to cash in," we'd like to know where you've been for the last 4 years.
BONUS:
Yes, Trump’s crypto grifts, well reported in NYT, reveal unprecedented corruption. But they also reveal that the people who can ruin the economy are in effect shorting the US dollar.
— Timothy Snyder (@timothysnyder.bsky.social) May 5, 2025 at 10:35 AM
BONUS II:
The Qatar Economic Forum is hosting a public session on how to profit off of Trump’s bribery and corruption schemes.
— Khashoggi's Ghost (@urocklive1.bsky.social) May 4, 2025 at 6:25 PM
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BONUS III:
(Photo illustration: Oliver Munday; photograph by Skynesher / Getty (hands)
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