The Stunningly STAGGERING Corruption of Donald John Trump

Folks, things are moving fast.

I find myself thinking back to my 2017 self and the outrage I felt about Trump 1.0 corruption.

The newly-minted — or Russian-installed if you want to keep it real — POTUS was banning everyday Muslims but welcoming their murderous leaders and anyone else who wanted access to pay overinflated prices at his Old Post Office-converted D.C. hotel.

The bar there became the Episode IV: A New Dope, a creature cantina of Trump 1.0 which brings to mind the Ben Kenobi quote as they entered Mos Eisley:

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious.”

You may remember that before he was sworn in, Trump had a press conference on just how amazingly ethical he was going to be. Beside him were stacks and stacks of folders — all some sort of proof that he was leaving all his business ventures behind in the capable hands of his two sons — the coked-out one, and the even dumber one that didn’t merit his dad’s name.

Per CNN at the time:

“These papers are just some of the many documents I’ve signed turning over complete and total control to my sons,” Trump said during his press conference, standing next to a table stacked with manila folders.

Of course, he wouldn’t let anyone in the press actually look at the contents, but I remember somebody managed to flip through some. All blank pages. Surprise!

Training-wheels Trump also promised to make no international deals while POTUS. Just like him not talking shop with his developmentally and ethically-challenged man-boys, nobody in their right mind believed either cover story.

And yet, there was an attempt to pretend to follow the law.

In fact, Trump made quite a big deal out of returning his $400k salary to the SWAMP in incremental “shows” complete with oversized checks. You know, like all the charities he’s banned from in the state of New York.

Of course, he more than made up for the paycheck with the high-cover creature cantina and China granting trademarks for various Ivanka Trump beauty junk because her brand was suddenly haute couture among kkklassy MAGA ladies who could only afford a botox makeover — not quite The Substance.

Trump also made sure that people in his administration stayed at a Trump properties while traveling — even if that once meant driving across Ireland to do it. And all the same global scum and villainy knew damn well to spend at Trump-branded joints whenever possible.

Then there was Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster where Trump spent most of his three to four-day weekends maintaining his status as the greatest golfer in the history with the possible exemption of Kim Jong Un.

All the collage-injected, worked over boomer bimbos, their balding ex-husbands, slutty second wives, and all foreign spies paid overinflated rates at both places. But, taxpayers got in on that one too since all the Secret Service agents were forced to pay the same jacked rates. Trump even charged them/us for golf cart rentals to follow his cheating ass.

That whole not taking a salary Jedi Mind Trick (This is not the corruption you’re looking for…) did the trick for the MAGA crowd. That and all the profits he was giving up (not really) by even gracing the presidency — even though Trump’s true wealth back then was likely a fraction of what he claimed.

Kind of like the value of his properties when he tried to assess them for taxes.

None of that blatant corruption really cut through the mainstream clusterfuck clutter, but for sane political junkies, it seemed like the worst financial and ethical moves by a POTUS ever.

Because it was. Back then.

In olden times with darker hair…

The whole point of this preamble comes down to how quaint that all looks now — a couple million here, a couple million there... It’s like conservatives looking back to the 50s with gauzy fondness, conveniently forgetting the Jim Crow segregation and de facto white male dominance of the lesser sex.

Like everything else, us sane folk knew Trump 2.0 was going to be worse on every count — and corruption was no exception.

But, I don’t know if really anyone thought it could be this bad, this fast.

To put the Star Wars analogies in carbonite for a moment — it’s like Laura Ingalls moving from a Little House in the Big Woods to a one-room tenement slum from Gangs of New York with Billy “The Butcher” Cutting waking her up instead of her Pa.

It’s honestly hard to fathom the magnitude and scope of the corruption that we’re seeing before our very eyes. Harder still to find word for it — beyond blunt-force sarcasm and cultural references to take the edge off.

But, maybe, unlike Trump 1.0, it does seem like this grotesque Grift Force One story is finally breaking through into the mainstream.

To the main point. In my 100 Days/100 Failures essay, I had a brief chunk on corruption. But, it’s worth revisiting in a little more detail.

Stay with me here. This is uplifting stuff…

Approach to the Grift & Greed 2.0

Part of Trump’s whole modis operendi has always been saying the quiet part out loud. Or doing terrible and often illegal things right out in the open.

It’s a way of immediately normalizing it. For his MAGA core if he says it’s okay, then it’s okay. And for low information folks, doing bad shit so brazenly in the open takes away the shock of it all. They might not like it, but it’s much easier for them to file it away in the all politicians must do it folder.

It also neuters an already shockingly Trump-timid press.

The mainstream media still operates in a world where some intrepid investigative reporter(s) uncover a memo or a whistleblower or some evidence that breaks open a giant story — think Woodward, Bernstein, and Deep Throat. Or Linda Tripp tipping off a reporter to a tape of her conversation with Monica Lewinsky.

When those stories came out it was actual Breaking News and it set off a flurry of newsrooms looking to cover, confirm, and add to the story that would dominate coverage and perpetuate additional details and stories. Reporters and producers covering the White House now might not have even been alive for those Nixon and Clinton events — but that traditional mind set is still ingrained in the system.

When it all happens in the open, Trump says it’s normal and rarely proven wrong, upwards of half the country and media outlets immediately accepts that it is normal, and when the media writ large is scared and intimidated, well, you get the picture.

Of course, there’s also corporate media consolidation and the continuing downsizing of journalism, but that’s another story.

The bottom line is that stories don’t get covered with the tenacity to keep them alive or they just fade away with the next news cycle — likely Trump doing something immoral, illegal, or idiotic.

Trump may not be the mastermind behind the entirety of this new media ecosystem, but he’s sure as Hell benefited from it.

Bigly, and tragically.

Road to the Grift House

Because campaign finance laws are now virtually non-existent thanks especially to Citizens United — and almost never enforced when those left are broken — I won’t get too deep on Trump in the 2024 campaign.

But, it’s worth noting the disgusting new heights Trump took poisoning the system with dirty money and lining his own pockets with the same time.

Installing his daughter-in-law to head the RNC, he basically took over all money operation of the entire party. If you were a running Republican politician, you basically had to give cash to Trump to get his endorsement and then give again if you wanted anything for your own campaign from the honey pot.

It was carrots and sticks Art of the Grift style — basically the same con he’s now trying to do with tariffs and the global economy.

Add to that a slew of shady-ass super PACS (the future crypto templates) that were Trump slush funds that may have been spend on the campaign. Or maybe they just went into his Hungarian account. Who the fuck knows?

Sure, Musk got the attention, but there were plenty of other billionaires and (again) who knows what foreign entities throwing cash at Trump for future favors.

Clearing the Decks

As soon as the Trump Regime 2.0 hit the ground he made it clear by his cabinet picks and appointments that there would never be another federal investigation of Donald Trump no matter what he did — whether it came to blatant corruption or pretty much anything else.

If you think the Securities and Exchange Commission will ever investigate his bitcoin scheme or even anything more disgusting that may roll down shit mountain you’ve been hitting Trump’s Adderall stash.

And the Justice Department?

Please. Attorney General Pam Bondi wouldn’t investigate if he went on a mass killing spree of BLM protesters on 5^th Avenue.

But, because it’s not always just about Trump, he also immediately fired all the departmental Inspector Generals — you know, the people in charge of rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse.

While that may help him down the road, it also gives his cabinet heads and political appointments free reign to get a little taste of the corruption themselves. Got to keep the troops happy.

The Crypto Scams

I readily admit, my knowledge of cryptocurrency is limited. That’s primarily because I’ve read enough to know that bitcoin smells like a bullshit scheme. My educated hunch was confirmed when Trump did a 180 and dove head first into the whole rotten multiverse.

Before the November election, Trump and his sons launched crypto company called World Liberty Financial. Don’t get me wrong, it had some pre-election investors. But things didn’t really kick in until Trump won.

Then a Chinese billionaire threw in $75 million on tokens. That billionaire (Justin Sun) had been sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud in 2023. Guess what happened to that case?

Oh, and a Qatar government firm also invested $2 billion.

And guess who is a co-founder of World Liberty Financial? That would be Zach Witkoff, Trumps current US Special Envoy to the Middle East and the guy personally negotiating with Putin over Ukraine.

But, apparently, that wasn’t a slushy enough fund.

Just three days before being sworn in Trump launched his $Trump meme coin company.

Meme coins are even worse than regular cryptocurrency on the scam scale. It’s often called shitcoin because it has little or no actual value. But, in Trump’s tiny hands it became a way for anyone to invest in Trump even if they knew they weren’t going to make any money on the investment — in the traditional sense. From Wikipedia on $Trump:

A forensic analysis commissioned by The New York Times concluded that 813,294 wallets lost $2 billion by trading the coin while the president's company and partners profited about $100 million from trading fees.

It seems to me that in Trump’s mob boss mind, knowing that you would lose millions up front as a pledge of allegiance to him had to be a factor here. The Gold Leaf Room of Trump-branded eunuchs.

It’s also a sad reminder that while Trump was in the political wilderness he relied on small-time scams of his many poor supporters — digital trading cards and more MAGA shit made in China. Only to get back in power and totally fuck them over.

But back to $Trump.

As soon as that shitcoin was opened a bevy of big-name business billionaires invested in it. Knowing they would lose. As of March, it was estimated that Trump had made $350 million through token sales and fees. But, on a good day (when he wants to goose the numbers) his holdings can be worth over $20 billion.

Just today (5/16/25) the tiny Chinese company (otherwise known as China) that own TikTok invested $300 million in his shitcoin.

I wonder why?

Since the getting was good, the Donny and his Bit Boyz decided to start a second, crypto currency and mining company called American Bitcoin. The verdict is out on that one. It may be more than the global corruption markets can bear. It’s currently trading pretty flat.

But, not to worry. Driven by the $2 billion Qatar investment, the grandfather of them all — World Liberty Financial — is poised to go public, making the family untold billions.

This is the same family company that filed for bankruptcy six times prior to politics, and had such worn-out shoddy furniture at Trump Tower that when NBC made The Apprentice they had to construct the Trump “Board Room” in a studio.

Now, Dictatorships from China to the Middle East run through this crypto corruption like Russia does treason. For the Middle East, it’s not just bankrolling crypto.

Via NBC:

The Trump Organization, led by the president’s two oldest sons, has also significantly expanded its Middle East footprint, with new ventures in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. These include a Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai, a golf resort in Doha with Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund’s real estate arm, a Trump Tower in Jeddah, and a hotel under construction in Muscat. The projects are partnered with Dar Global, a developer linked to the Saudi government.

And keep in mind — most of these projects are dictator-funded buildings that the Trump Crime Clan will have nothing to do with building. As has been the norm for decades, Trump just slaps his name on the building and collects a free management fee.

I’m also amazed in doing research just to get the bare minimum on this web of corruption — how many mainstream media stories has headlines that includes phrases like raising concerns about conflicts of interest and ethical concerns worry some.

Come on, journalism. What the fuck will it take..?

Grift Force One

This is one of those things that you could have never imagined in a million years could happen before Trump.

But, when he did it, it made perfect sense.

Let’s remember that Trump’s private macho, gold-platted personal 747 is in reality old and broken down. Much like him. Or a hunk of junk like the Millennium Falcon, but with none of the character.

Side Note: Even in its prime Trump’s plane could never make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs like the Falcon. But, it’s probably a close second in number of underage rapes behind Jeffrey Epstein's Lolita Express.

Anyway, Trump knows that really rich people know he’s flying in something that just looks classy to poor people. Again, like him. So, when he won in 2016 he became obsessed with a new Trumped-out (maybe gold?) Air Force One. As CNN reported back then:

Two officials said the President asked for the new plane to be done by 2021, the beginning of what would be a second term, which is three years sooner than the original plan of 2024. The two 747s are in California now, an official said, and Boeing will be done upgrading the planes by then, but the Air Force testing requirements could take an additional three years.

“He wants to fly on that new plane,” a person familiar with the meeting said.

For months, the President has been fixated on a new plane and has repeatedly told his aides that he wants the plane to be completed for his second term. It’s an open question whether that can happen – given a lengthy Air Force testing time.

No surprise that Trump publicly pushed Boeing to lower its price. And touted $1billion in savings.

Well, that was then and 2024 has come and gone.

Now, Trump doesn’t have his new mushroom-penis compensators and the cost overruns continue — likely on purpose to erase Trump’s deal. I mean, Boeing has an entire division called Playing the Government for Billions that’s been on the scene a lot longer than Trump.

Enter Qatar and Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani the Hamas and Iran-funding Dictator (sorry, Emir) of the country.

The Palace of the Sky in question is actually his 14-year-old beater plane. He also recently gave another one to Turkish president Erdogan — so they’re kind of like “Dictator in Training” door prizes.

Where to even begin on the merits of this fiasco.

First, it’s just blatantly illegal.

Just not to AG Pam Bondi who wrote up a legal document that said it’s all legal-like. Bondi’s last job before going on Fox for Trump and the occasional happy ending for the boss?

Lobbyist for Qatar at $130,000 a month.

In the real world — not the to be confused with The Real World: Boston where Trump’s Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy was a cast member — the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution explicitly states that a POTUS can’t take gifts. Unless Congress makes an exception.

Just because it has a funny name that most people don’t understand doesn’t mean it’s not the law. Lincoln asked the Union Congress to approve ivory elephants tusks he was given from a Sultan during the Civil war — and they said no. Sorry, Honest Abe. The Founding Fathers were adamant that there shouldn’t even be the appearance of corruption.

I’m sure they’ll explain that all in detail once they finish digging themselves out of their graves to give a joint press conference…

Second. That it is just BLATANT corruption. All caps, italicized.

Qatar isn’t giving the $400 million plane to the United States — like the Statue of Liberty or Panda Bears. Trump (via his library) takes it home when he’s done. If that ever happens. Trump has tried to walk that back — or make it confusing because the story went south — but that was the original deal.

Then there’s the savings. Or free as Trump calls it.

As has been widely reported, it will cost hundreds of millions not just to upgrade the plane to an Air Force One. And that $ probably doesn’t include the security risks. Before there even was a James Bond, spies have been placing tiny listening devices anywhere and everywhere. Now? They could be embedded into the literal rivets of the plane’s skeleton.

Then again, does Trump even care?

Let’s be honest. We’re pretty much on the bad guy side now. Does Qatar, the Saudis, China, the Russians, etc. need to hear anything Trump won’t tell them?

And if he did have the plane upgraded (only Boeing has ever made them) it will take years to do it. So, if he does leave office we pay for the most technically-advanced plane in the world that he gets delivered just in time to fly home in.

At least we’ll have the other two planes. Someday. Once Trump gets whatever he wants it’s not like he’ll give a shit and mean tweet about about picking up the pace.

It all sounds perfectly on brand for Trump, doesn’t it? If that’s not the ultimate and final Trump fuck you to America, I don’t know what is.

But, again. That’s all assuming Trump will leave.

He came to this politics game as a fake billionaire with a fake brand created by a reality show. Now he’s royally screwed the country and made himself a real billionaire. Based on every shred of public and private evidence I’ve ever read; wealth and power are the most important (if not only) things he’s ever cared about.

Yet another reason to keep accumulating more to fill the void where a soul should be.

Post Script:

As long as this is, it could have been much long. The preamble could have contained a brief overview of Trump’s corruption prior to politics. And even briefly off-the-top-of-my-head that would have been lengthy. Shortest take: Always corrupt.

I also didn’t cover the giant, giant probability that Trump and his chosen friends wildly profited from Trump’s single-handed market manipulations during his ongoing tariff fiasco.

There’s no real empirical evidence of that because Trump 2.0 is a closed loop.

We’ll see if that circle stays unbroken, but everything tells me that it happened. The only question is the scale.