After the 2016 elections, Donald Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club, which he still personally profits from because he refused to divest from it and from other businesses, steeply raised membership rates for would-be members. The club did not bother to hide its motivations: Membership here now comes with the ear of a sitting president. Pay Donald Trump's business an up-front fee, and you get access to the frequently visiting president that few other Americans, either in or out of government, can dream of.
It was absolutely inevitable that this story would eventually follow: A wealthy cosmetic dentist and Trump golfing buddy scribbled a note one day to Donald on Mar-a-Lago stationery reading, “Dear King. Good seeing you this weekend. This is a short summary of where federal dollars are going for Dental Care for the Vets, Native American Indians and [underprivileged] Children. Let's set up a meeting with the American Dental Association and create an oversight committee to stop the waste. I can save your administration 250 million/yr. Love ya President—Albert H.”
Trump's response: An order that the proposal be sent to then-Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin. No muss, no fuss: It goes from Mar-a-Lago to the VA based on a single handwritten note.
Said letter-writer Albert Hazzouri upon being contacted by ProPublica:
“I’m really not involved in any politics, I’m just a small-time dentist,” he said. “I guess there’s a lot of money spent on veterans’ care and American Native Indians’ care, and I guess they wanted to have a little hand in it, the American Dental Association, to try to guide what’s going on or whatever.”
A blunt response. Hey, buddy, I dunno about politics or anything, I just happen to know there's a lot of government money rolling around and a few of my friends are pretty interested in that. (As for the too-on-the-nose addressing of Donald Trump as "Dear King", Hazzouri insists it is an inside joke and a "very personal thing.")
This is yet again the precise sort of thing presidential divestment was meant to prevent, and the reason that every elected official below the president is subject to federal and state ethics laws barring such behavior. It is now possible to pay Donald Trump a cash fee that will in turn give you enough access to the gears of government that you can scribble out new proposals for privatizing significant parts of it and be reasonably sure that The President Himself will deliver your message. Mar-a-Lago has been an absolute den of such mischief, and is the home base of a trio of wealthy Trump club friends who somehow landed unofficial roles as top-level advisers overseeing Department of Veterans Affairs policies, for some reason.
This is probably all still just the tip of the iceberg. Trump set up multiple systems by which supplicants could funnel cash to his businesses and get, in exchange, more influence in his administration than those who did not make those payments. It is unfathomably unlikely that the instances reporters have discovered so far are the only ones that exist.