CREW is tracking Trump’s unprecedented corruption (again)

The most corrupt president of all time is back in office with a slew of new conflicts of interest. Donald Trump spent the last four years growing his business empire, adding a publicly traded social media company, cryptocurrency venture and new international developments to his already vast portfolio. Instead of assuring Americans that he will put the national interest over his bottom line, Trump’s company released a woefully inadequate ethics pledge that not only falls short of divestment, but greatly expands the potential for corruption from Trump’s first term by allowing it to strike deals with private foreign companies.
But we’ve seen this before. Trump’s first term in office carries with it a lasting legacy of unprecedented corruption that began with his decision not to divest from the Trump Organization, opening the door for corporate lobbyists, foreign officials, special interests and anyone else seeking political clout to gain access to his administration. CREW spent the Trump presidency rigorously tracking these conflicts of interest, culminating in a catalogue of almost 4,000 conflicts between Trump’s business interests and his presidency.
This time around the conflicts are also more expansive. With the addition of several new business interests, Trump has created even more opportunities for those looking to curry favor with him to line his pockets. As Trump settles into the Oval Office for the second time, CREW is tracking these conflicts.
During Trump’s first term, CREW tracked visits to Trump properties by federal, state, and foreign government officials, and Trump himself; lavish events held at Trump properties by political groups, special interests, and foreign government-connected bodies; countless times Trump administration officials promoted Trump properties while speaking in their official capacity; valuable foreign government trademarks granted to Trump businesses; and a slew of other miscellaneous interactions between the Trump Organization and the Trump presidency.
While we will never know exactly how much Trump’s corruption paid off, we know it was a lot. According to personal financial disclosures released after he left office, Trump made more than $1.6 billion from the Trump Organization and other outside income during his four years as president, including millions in taxpayer money from government agencies like the Secret Service that he forced to pay his properties. This income amounted to far more than what Trump would have earned if he only made the presidential salary that he made a big show of donating last time he was in office.
CREW has chronicled the different ways that Trump profited during his presidency. Special interest groups held 137 events at Trump properties, likely paying him more than $13 million. An analysis of his tax returns shows that he made up to $160 million from international business dealings. Building on a report published by the House Oversight Committee Democrats, CREW showed that foreign governments likely paid him $13.6 million while he was in the White House and raised the possibility of millions more in potential payments.
Trump is creating even more opportunities for people to pay him in his second term as president. In September, Trump and his sons unveiled his cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial, just months after he headlined a Bitcoin conference where he promised to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet.” Within the first few days of his presidency, he released an executive order declaring crypto a “national priority” and established a working group to explore the creation of a national cryptocurrency stockpile. Most recently Trump has launched a pair of meme coins that are already valued at billions of dollars.
Trump is also the majority stakeholder of Trump Media & Technology Group, a publicly traded company that owns his social media site, Truth Social. Trump is eligible to sell his shares, opening the door for foreign or domestic interests to put money in his pockets. But even if he decides to hold on to his interest in the company, wealthy investors—foreign and domestic—can buy shares of the faltering company, which some analysts have described as a “meme stock”— because a company that has reported hundreds of millions in net losses over its first few months as a public company, with almost no profits to speak of, should not be such a popular investment.
Additionally, Trump’s relationship with the Saudi government-backed LIV golf is poised to create conflicts. Since its founding in 2021, LIV has held six events at various Trump Golf Clubs, and in April it will have its first event of the Trump presidency at Trump National Doral in Miami. According to Forbes, LIV spent $796,000 on one tournament alone at Trump’s Bedminster, New Jersey golf club in 2022.
During Trump’s first term, his downtown Washington, D.C. hotel was the center of the world for his allies and those looking to influence his administration, with CREW tracking over 1,000 visits in four years. Foreign governments and special interest groups held events there—and to other Trump properties—to curry favor with the administration while personally enriching Trump in the process. Trump sold the property in 2022. However, Trump’s property company is reportedly in talks to repurchase the hotel. Whether he buys it or not, Trump properties will continue to attract business from influence seekers, including special interests and foreign governments. There are a handful of foreign governments that rent or own space at Trump properties, including Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Research by CREW shows that foreign governments are expected to pay a total of nearly $2 million in monthly fees for units in New York’s Trump World Tower.
Trump’s company is also expected to keep pursuing new international deals in his second term. Since 2021, the Trump Organization has signed several new agreements with an international developer for Trump-branded developments in Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. These deals open multiple doors for the Trump Organization to partner with foreign-government-owned partners.
Taken together, these new companies and developments send a clear message that Trump has no interest in mitigating corruption during his second term. In fact, he’s only opened up new, more secretive avenues to accept illegal emoluments and other payments from wealthy interests. Over the next four years, we will be here tracking all of it.