In his first administration, Donald Trump told us that his sons Eric and Don Jr. were going to run the Trump Organization like it was a trust.
We know that that's not what happened. It turned into one of the biggest grift operations of all time. The Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C. was a hangout for foreign dignitaries to be able to give Trump money.
Trump treated the emoluments clause in the Constitution like it was a joke.
Trump is claiming the same distancing from the Trump Organization that he did the first time, with Eric and Don Jr. isolated from him with the trust. There is no trust, with many connotations for that word.
The Trump organization has issued its guidelines for his second administration. Critics say it's not enough. Big surprise, huh?
The Trump organization announced Friday that the company would not enter into new agreements with foreign governments while Donald Trump is in office.
The ethics plan, released Friday, also states that Trump will not be involved in the management of the Trump Organization and that money spent at the Trump properties by foreign governments will be donated to the US Treasury.
That's exactly what was promised the first time around, and it didn't work at all. Trump even nicked the Secret Service giving him protection, staying at various properties, at ridiculous rates.
When the Secret Service needed to cover Trump at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C., Secret Service was charged 300% above the normal rate.
As another example, Kelly Craft, who Trump made the ambassador to Canada, stayed at his Trump International Hotel 20 times over an 11 month span. She spent $30,000 doing that. One time, when her staff offered to put her up at another hotel at a much lower rate, she insisted on staying at the Trump hotel.
There were people who paid for stays at his hotels, who got pardons right at the end of Trump's term.
There are many stories about Rudy Giuliani selling Trump pardons for $2 million apiece.
"The Trump organization is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father's presidency." Eric Trump said.
He then said that they're going to do such a good job, just like they did the first time around. Again, we've seen that movie before. Most people like shopping at thrift stores, with Donald Trump, it's a grift store.
At the end of November, people noted that Trump's ethics plan didn't involve any efforts to avoid conflicts of interest.
Trump dodged releasing his tax returns during his entire first administration, and it was only when the New York Times got their hands on them that information was finally published.
We still haven't seen enough. There are many, many years that we know nothing about. And that's where we need to start in order to follow the money.
The president elect is now entering office with a brand new conflict, Trump Media Company, which runs Truth Social. Experts have raised warnings that anyone trying to buy access or influence in the Trump administration could simply purchase ad space or make favorable investments in the social network.
There's also the problem of the stock for Trump Media being artificially inflated by about 30 times. It's selling for $35 a share when all the experts say that it isn't worth more than a dollar. It's being artificially inflated by Trump supporters. There is no way to make money on it. They keep the price of the stock up because Trump owns over 50% of the company and the stock alone is worth billions at the current rate. The company, along with Truth social have been operating at a loss since their creation. They may never become profitable. If people finally realize it's not worth anything, he could drop his net worth by billions in no time at all.
"They're arguing that they won't have any new transactions with foreign governments., but that's not the standard. The standard is once he's president you can't receive any profits or benefits from foreign governments," said Richard Painter, chief ethics lawyer during George W. Bush's term.
What Painter means is that Trump has to cancel any and all contracts he has dealing with foreign governments right now. His ethics plan only covers new foreign government contracts and payments.
The whole point of the emoluments clause is that the government is not for sale to anyone. Gifts are strictly controlled. Something worth more than $500, you have to ask Congress whether you can keep it or not. Anything you take not authorized by Congress is a bribe. If the gift is from a foreign country or dignitary, then it becomes public property and if the president wants to keep it, he has to pay for it, for what it's worth.
There were lawsuits filed against Trump based on the emoluments clause by various Democrats and state attorney generals, but none of them succeeded before Trump left office.
I mentioned the Trump International Hotel earlier. Republican politicians, foreign dignitaries, and corporations booked rooms at the hotel. Sometimes, they didn't even use them. He sold the lease, not the building, just the lease, for $375 million to the company that operates Waldorf Astoria hotels. Many people thought it was too high a price. He paid off his loan to Deutsche Bank and pocketed the rest.
Now there are stories that Trump wants to buy back the hotel. Actually it's just the lease for the hotel. This would be a conflict of interest, just like it was in his first term. But Eric Trump has met with the banks that control the lease. The US government actually owns the building just called The Old Post Office.
Since Trump left office, the Trump organization has also secured deals in foreign countries, including Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam, according to Trump's government disclosure forms and company announcements.
I was surprised not to see China in the list of countries that he had interest in.
In 2020 an investigation found that Trump had a Chinese Bank account. It was found in his tax records that were obtained by the New York Times.
There's also all the trademarks that Ivanka Trump has in China.
We haven't even covered all the fundraising ploys Trump uses at each opportunity when there is a negative thing that happens to him and he whines for help.
After the 2020 election, he asked for money to help fight the "election fraud" in the courts. He collected $250 million for the Election Defense Fund, which doesn't exist. Instead, it went to an unrelated PAC. That's called fraud. Nothing happened to Trump after the ruse was discovered, and no action will ever happen now.
At each and every indictment, and during the criminal and civil trials, there was a plea for more money to save Trump from the persecution from the deep state.
After the election, fundraising for Trump and the Republicans continued, and people kept giving, even though there was no reason to at the present. No campaigns to fund, no events to be done. Just gathering money for unknown purposes.
Along with his week worth of rants on Truth Social about his 34 felony convictions and his pending sentencing, Trump was ready for more fundraising.
Trump sent out a fundraising email immediately after being sentenced, saying he wants to hear from his supporters. The email links to page soliciting monetary donations and asking if they stand with him after his sentencing.
"They're trying to sabotage the Presidential Transition process," it starts.
The "they" must be those radical left Democrats. 30 minutes out of Trump's life is threatening the transition. The judge deliberately set it up that way so that claim couldn't even be made. The sentencing didn't do anything to prevent him from taking office, either. We could only hope.
"They're trying to END the Presidency as we know it, just before I take office!"
I really want to know the means by which the presidency of the United States is eliminated. Are his email recipients that stupid that they would fall for this? Sure.
"I WANT TO READ EVERY RESPONSE TONIGHT --- SUBMIT NOW."
Trump doesn't know how to read, so the first line doesn't make any sense. Even if he could read he wouldn't bother. He's too busy playing golf. The thing is, he didn't ask for a response in writing. The only thing he was asking for was money.
The "SUBMIT NOW" could have several meanings. He's not talking about the donations, that's off of the link, and he didn't actually explain what he wanted people to respond to and in what manner, or about what. I guess he just wants people to stroke him because he's so persecuted and maligned.
I think the "SUBMIT NOW" is a demand to bow down to an autocratic ruler. I think that makes more sense than anything else.
Why would he need any more money when he's already collected, at last count, $170 million for his inauguration? He's going to pocket whatever is left over after the event. People have already given to him for that. Yes, the billionaires and millionaires have donated to the inauguration, but that doesn't total up to the $170 million. Most of it is probably from all those small donors that keep getting suckered into giving him money. It will happen again with this latest fundraising drive. The question is what is the money supposed to be used for? He doesn't say he needs it for the inauguration. He doesn't say he needs it to appeal his conviction. He just says I've been convicted as a criminal, so give me money as a reward.
Even Melania now gets to take her shot at grift. It wasn't enough that Jeff Bezos put a stranglehold on the Washington Post's editorial content. Donating to Trump's inauguration fund wasn't enough. Now Jeff, through Amazon, is giving Melania a $40 million licensing fee for producing a documentary about her. Probably making the documentary will only cost a couple of million. She's also the executive producer of the documentary. How many different ways can she get paid? Amazon could spend millions just using Trump's hotels, golf courses, his 10,000 square foot penthouse in Trump Tower and more, as locations, paying fees, of course, for the privilege.
Credit: Ann Telnaes
Amazon says that it's "excited to share this truly unique story." The reality is in Ann Telnaes's cartoon.
Amazon reportedly outbid Paramount, and Disney for the rights to make the documentary.
We'll never find out what could have happened with the Mueller investigation, because they didn't follow the money. Trump was actively pursuing a major real estate deal in Moscow while he was still campaigning for president for his first term.
The Mueller investigation issued subpoenas to Deutsche Bank AG for information about Paul Manafort's dealings with the bank and somehow the White House found out about it. When his team was asked about what was being investigated, Mueller told them that Manafort was the target, not Trump.
"At that point, any financial investigation of Trump was put on hold. That is, we backed down, the issue was too incendiary; the risk too severe," said Andrew Weissman, a senior prosecutor in the investigation.
Deutsche Bank has had its own problems that resulted in billions of dollars in fines and a loss to their reputation. When employees wanted to basically blow the whistle on entities tied to Donald Trump and Kushner and their transactions, senior level directors at the bank stopped them.
New York Attorney General Letitia James picked up the pieces and prosecuted Trump for tax fraud and falsification of business records and won that huge judgment in the civil case presided over by Judge Engoron. At last check it was up to $486 million and counting with the daily interest. Every attempt by Trump to get the judgment thrown out has not succeeded. Leticia James still says she's going to collect.
In addition to all of Trump's other actions, he is most likely an offender of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA). It makes illegal to bribe foreign government officials to benefit one's business. Donald Trump has been calling it a ridiculous and horrible law since 2012.
He wanted to repeal it in 2017. He's talked about it many times since. He says it gives other countries' businesses an unfair advantage over the United States companies. In other words, he wants to be able to bribe foreign government officials for favors.
In all likelihood, with both the House and the Senate in his pocket, the repeal of the law would be almost certain. We already know he wants to get rid of it. The only question is, would he want to do the bribing himself? He thinks he can get away with anything, and he has, so there's nothing stopping him as President of the United States and the immunity he's been given. Dealing with foreign governments is the prerogative of the President. It's an official act. He may feel he doesn't even need to repeal it to do what he wants to do.
The FCPA was signed into law by President Jimmy Carter. Was there some animosity from this rolled into his claim that Carter sold the Panama Canal for $1?
High profile payments exposed in 1975 and 1976 involved Northrop, Lockheed, Gulf Oil, Mobil, and United Brands. United Brands eventually became Chiquita Brands International. We created the term "banana republics" through United Brands bribery of banana growing countries with the "Bananagate" scandal.
Even if Trump didn't want to do the bribing himself, he would want corporations, especially large multinational corporations, to be given a free hand in pursuing business deals.
He thinks he's so invulnerable, he would find no reason not to take bribes himself. He already has during the campaign. The billionaire with a large investment in ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok, visits Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and suddenly Trump no longer wants TikTok banned while everyone in Congress thinks it should.
He openly asked for a billion dollar bribe when talking to a group of oil executives and owners that if they donated that billion dollars to his campaign, he would make sure oil drilling regulations would be rolled back. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a criminal complaint in June of 2024 with the Department of Justice. There's no news since.
Trump was still collecting campaign funds for another run for president, while he was president. This was before he declared he was doing so. Illegal contributions were made to pro-Trump PACs by foreign nationals.
Then there's the story of the $10 million being put into Trump's campaign days before the 2016 election, where he did a $10 million donation to his own campaign first, then taking the Egyptian bank's money. It may have actually been in cash. Never prosecuted, never proved, but that is the same with nearly all of Trump's financial transactions. It could have been the first provable bribe of a US president.
The time to follow Trump's money was when he wasn't president. Congress should have asked for all his tax records as soon as he declared himself a candidate for the 2024 election. That would have blown the lid off of the whole operation.
The 34 felonies in the hush money-election interference case, and the New York case won by Letitia James are just the tip of the iceberg.
The Saudi Arabia backed LIV golf tournaments just happened to play at Trump's D.C., Bedminster, New Jersey and Miami golf courses. The $2 billion that the Saudi Arabia Investment Fund gave to Jared Kushner, only a few months after Trump left office in 2021, makes him millions every year just holding on to it. How much will Mohammed bin Salman have to cough up in order to bribe Trump? And for what? He's already bribed his family. Probably, something along the lines of selling Saudi Arabia the latest and greatest military equipment we make. Never mind, he's going to do that anyway.
Trump would already be building hotels in Israel if the October 7th Hamas attack had never happened. Talks were halted after the attack and the Trump Organization is just waiting for the war to end.
Trump even knows how to make money off of Afghanistan. They bought a unit in Trump's building across the street from the United Nations, Trump World Tower, as many foreign governments have. But they haven't been paying the service fees on it. So he's put a lien on it. The Tower has a history of financial mismanagement with Eric Trump being on the board of directors. Whatever it is, it always works out for Donald Trump's benefit.
One thing you can do, is read Trump's federal election commission's public disclosure forms for last year.
He pulled in over $700 million in revenue, but he's got a lot of debts too, including the money he owes to E. Jean Carroll and the State of New York. The filings have some interesting details, but nothing like would be seen on his complete tax returns.
In 2018, Trump's disclosure forms showed 500 LLCs. Limited Liability Company. Reporters weren't able to dig much information out of it. It's like each manages one little piece of Trump's empire. These take the form of partnerships. If the partnership is sued, then the plaintiffs can't go after the partners personal assets. Layers of protection with impossible to follow detail. That's why his tax returns are the key.
Shell companies even hide his links to the January 6th insurrection. There's all kinds of different payments to people who organized and provided services to the rally at the ellipse. But the shell companies make it hard to know who was paid and when, for things that aren't in or detailed in the Federal Election Commission listings.
We know that money donated to Trump's campaign doesn't just pay for the campaign. It goes to people Trump knows, Trump, and his family.
In early 2020, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint with the FEC, alleging that the Trump Campaign laundered $170 million in spending to conceal payments to people close to the Trump campaign and family. Once again, an LLC called America Made Media Consultants was used to pass through the payments, including to people who didn't even register the payments with the FEC.
When AMMC was created in 2018, Kushner put Lara Trump, Mike Pence's nephew John Pence and Trump campaign CFO Sean Dollman on the board of directors. All in the family, and it's not the television show. The CLC complaint says that this shell company actually funneled $617 million dollars in all sorts of directions. In 2021 CLC amended its complaint and now it was $769 million that was funneled. Then in 2022, CLC had to sue the FEC over the dismissal of their suit against the Trump Campaign and America Made Media Consultants.
CLC was again in the news in 2022 when they spotted an illegal movement of money between a leadership PAC and Make America Great Again Inc. This time, they were able to follow the money. Should have been a slam dunk case, right? Nope. Not a word about the resolution of the cases.
In April of 2024, once again CLC filed a complaint against Trump's campaign and for other related political committees. This time it's for $7.2 million in legal fees. However, the company, Red Curve, does not offer any legal services according to the complaint. "The company has been fronting legal services to Trump since at least December 2022, with Trump affiliated committees repaying the company later."
Along with everything else, Trump is actually breaking the law with how he is paying his legal fees. This case also disappeared, along with all the other ones. It doesn't seem like the FEC is doing a very good job, even during the Biden years. It seems the only thing that they can look at is one-on-one donations where the source and the recipient are plain. That isn't how Trump works.
What about what he's doing with our money?
He's taking that 1 billion dollar oil company bribe and destroying a trillion dollars worth of clean energy investment. His 2017 tax cuts have already cost us trillions of dollars in lost revenue. He's just going to make it worse with more tax cuts for corporations in billionaires in his next term.
We could wind up having no money at all for either ourselves or the government and the services it provides, if Trump actually follows through on getting rid of the income tax and using tariffs as the only funding source. The billionaires and millionaires will have plenty of money to pay for the high prices of food and goods. We're the ones who won't have enough for food and housing. Everything else for us becomes discretionary spending. Meaning, whatever else is left over.
For Trump, the presidency is the world's largest piggy bank. The United States is just another version of the game Monopoly. He's already got the "get out of jail free" card. He's ready to put up hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place. He'll find ways to get the money to pay for them from the Small Business Administration. He won't need Deutsche Bank anymore.
Trump had a cabinet full of lobbyists, more than 200 companies, special interest groups, and foreign governments funneled millions of dollars into Trump properties to curry favor with his administration during his tenure. The non-partisan Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) documented more than 3,400 conflicts of interest during Trump's four year term.
Trump's conflicts of interest are bribery, corruption, theft, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, embezzlement, stock manipulation, and insider trading. Everything he does is a conflict of interest.
It's all about the money. To him, like in Caberet, money makes the world go around.
It's still legal tender. Printed on a real $2 bill, but only the Federal Reserve would take it.
He won't be happy until his ugly mug is on the hundred dollar bill. Currently only dead people can be on currency and coins. The law is called the Thayer Amendment passed in 1866. I predict that Trump will either ignore the law or have it repealed so he can be put on currency. When that happens, he may face the same fate as Julius Caesar.
First of six different coins that have been found. CAESARDICT. Caesar dictator. A benevolent dictator.
Brutus and co-conspirators assassinated Caesar in part because Caesar put his portrait on coins. This was seen as an affront to Roman tradition. History does repeat itself.
Scott Bessent, Trump's nominee for Treasury Secretary wants "a new golden age of de-regulation." Sounds just like the man to get the job done. All he's got to do is tell the Bureau of Engraving to make the change. There's no penalty for breaking the law. Half the country wouldn't mind. The rest of us will say "Sic Semper Tyrannis," (thus always to tyrants).
This is from 2017.
Trump and Musk want to eliminate the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). One protects you from financial fraud, and the other makes sure that you still get your money if the bank goes bankrupt. You have to ask yourself why. The CFPB is obvious because it protects people from fraudsters like Trump. The FDIC makes no sense. Banks are required to pay into the system to get the insurance. The public pays nothing at all. It was one of FDR's great ideas that's kept banks alive by preventing bank runs. Trump and Musk need to watch "It's a Wonderful Life" to understand the purpose of the FDIC.
So, Trump wants you more vulnerable to Payday lenders schemes and credit card bait and switch rewards programs and you lose all your money if you keep it in a bank instead of under your mattress.
Good for me, but not for thee. That's Trump's motto. He claims his motto is "promises made, promises kept." How's that going? Well, he can't really bring down food prices because things don't work that way. Once they're up, they don't come down. Good excuse.
What's that? Gas can't come down either, because we're already producing more than we can use and are making more money for the oil companies by exporting it. It's the global cost for a barrel of oil and the cost of refining and distributing. Refining and distributing always go up as wages improve. New refineries cost more to build. Distributing costs always goes up.
With all this realization that nothing Trump promised will ever get you richer, how is Trump going to "Make America Wealthy Again?" He's promised that. The follow through is lacking.
No, he wants his buddies to be more wealthy. On Tuesday, he announced a $20 billion investment in data centers by a friend of his from the United Arab Emirates who also just happens to be partners with Trump in a golf course in Dubai.
That's who Trump is thinking about, not you.
Number one of the Ten Commandments is usually "Thou shalt have no other gods but me." Trump's worship of money breaks this one every day.
One way to make money is by not having to pay for something in the first place. It was estimated in May of 2024 that Trump had spent over $100 million in legal fees. With all that's happened between then and now, I'd say the total would be more like $200 million.
He's been paying them with campaign funds and those small donor drives that he does after each indictment or setback or case loss. Technically, legal fees from campaign funds are okay if they are for something directly related to the campaign. None of the cases have that relation. Is the FEC jumping in to tell Trump to cut it out? No, and everything gets canceled forever when he takes office. If they couldn't do it then, they certainly can't do it now.
Letitia James should be taking Trump to the cleaners over the decades of fraud he perpetrated. She won the judgement against him last February, but nothing has happened besides Trump posting a reduced $175 million instead of the $486 million he actually owes.
Trump's lawyer asked for the judgement to be canceled for the sake of "unity" for the country, and James said no way on December 10th. The case is in front of the highest court in New York, Appellate Division First Department. It was the Manhattan Supreme Court's appellate division that dropped the bond from the then $454 million bond to $175 million. The First Department is working on both the question of Trump committing fraud, he obviously did, and what the real amount of the fine should be. James has made a good case that Trump defrauded insurance companies and banks to the tune if $250 million. Then there's the tax fraud of devaluing properties that had been overvalued to the insurance companies and banks. Actually, that could be a criminal case of tax evasion for the State of New York and the Federal government. There's also New York City property taxes.
We're coming up on a year since Judge Engoron levied the fine. Trump's lawyers have been all over the place filing complaints, but nothing has swayed the First Department to do away with the judgement. If they were going throw it out, it would have already happened. They're just deciding how much of a fine or if there is any way the SCOTUS immunity decision affects the case.
The biggest chunk of money is in his stock in Trump Media, trade symbol DJT. Current worth Is $4.3 billion. He says he doesn't want to sell any. That has boosted, or at least has not hurt, the value of the stock. At the $1 a share price it should be, it would be worth $114 million. He doesn't need to sell when MAGA is paying his legal bills and he's open for business in accepting bribes.
Forbe's billionaire tracker has Trump's net worth valued at $6.1 billion. He ranks at #518th in the world. Take away his Trump Media stock value and place it one dollar a share and you've got $1.9 billion.
Forbes takes debt into account, like all of Trump's real estate loans, but they don't include the judgements against him as far as I can figure from reading their methodology and the calculation. Forbes tagged Trump with $478 million in judgements as of September, 2024. The interest on the James case is $112,000 per day.
Between Sept. 24 2024 and January 12 2024, that's another $12.32 million. His final total net worth is $1.32 billion.
New civil claims against Trump while he is in office and the ones already filed are uncertain. The president is immune from civil cases for official conduct.
The Capitol Policemen and lawmakers cases were ruled by a federal judge on Jan. 3rd to be able to continue. Who knows what judgements those cases could cost Trump. Look at the $148 million Shae Moss and Ruby Freeman were awarded against Rudy Giuliani just for defamation. Inciting violence that causes bodily and mental injury could be a lot more with punitive damages, to keep Trump from doing it ever again.
There are also a lot of cases that have fallen off the radar, like the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, that are suing Trump for directing violence against them by talking about them eating cats and dogs and pets. JD Vance is part of that one, too.
As long as the suit is not about official acts by Trump, civil cases against Trump can continue, and new ones can be filed. Trump never has to appear in civil cases so his lawyers can't claim it would interfere with his presidency.
Add up all the preceeding facts and suppositions, and it looks like Trump ran for president not only to stay out of jail, but also to keep from going bankrupt.
News organization and reporters need to keep up with all the civil cases against Trump already in litigation and and new ones to come because they need to follow Trump's money. His reputation as a successful businessman means a great deal for his ego. Punch a hole in that and he will deflate before our eyes.
Couldn't happen to a nicer person.
