The United States had corrupt presidencies in the past, but the Trump Presidency is the most audaciously corrupt of them all. The others involved high government official, but not the President himself, which is why this is different. Not only does Trump cavalierly violate the law to enrich himself, his family and his allies, but he does it brazenly, daring anyone to stop him. The same Trump who accused the Biden’s of being a crime family without evidence, is the “Don” of the Donald Trump Crime family.
Up until now, historians considered the Grant administration (1869-1877) and the Harding administration (1921-1923) the most corrupt in United States history. During the Grant administration, Vice President Schuyler Colfax invested money in the Crédit Mobilier construction company which contributed to his political war chest. Crédit Mobilier was created by Union Pacific Railroad to construct part of the transcontinental railroad and submitted inflated and fraudulent bills costing the federal government and American taxpayers millions of dollars. Nine leading politicians, including Colfax, were investigated as part of the theft and cover-up. Other Grant era corruption scandals included the Whiskey Ring and the Safe Burglary Conspiracy. Oliver Babcock, Grant’s personal secretary, was indicted in both corruption scandals but was acquitted each time. However, John McDonald, Supervisor of the Internal Revenue Service, was convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment.
During Harding’s administration corporations, banks, and stockbrokers went unregulated ultimately leading to the Great Depression. In the Teapot Dome scandal, Albert Fall, Harding’s Secretary of the Interior, was bribed by the founder of Sinclair Oil to gain access to oil on federal lands. Fall was tried, convicted, and spent a year in prison.
Since his return to office in January 2025, Donald Trump and his family have engaged in moneymaking schemes like none other in modern American history. They are enriching Trump family members and associates, important government officials, and Trump’s business partners. Several “friends and family” members are using their connections to Trump and the U.S. government to negotiate deals with foreign governments they benefit them, when they should be promoting the interests of the United States.
Trump, once a cryptocurrency skeptic, is now one of its biggest boosters. He eliminated Biden era restrictions on crypto designed to protect the public and the environment. Trump and his partners launched their own cryptocurrency memecoin, $TRUMP, just before his second inauguration and Trump and special envoy, Steve Witkoff founded the cryptocurrency company World Liberty Financial with their sons. The paper value of their shares in WLF is billions of dollars. Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner have a business partnership focused on real estate development in the Middle East. It is never clear if their involvement in Middle East peace negotiations is intended to end the war and benefit the people of the region or to promote their plan to redevelop the Gaza Strip. Kushner has already traded on his ties to Trump, he is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, to collect billions of dollars from investors in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations for his investment firm Affinity Partners.
Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is meeting with foreign governments trying to get them to invest in American data centers while his son who operates his father’s companies is helping A.I. firms raise capital to build more centers. The father-son partnership blurring government and business earned their company billions of dollars in new business deals and it is banking millions in fees.
Trump, Lutnick, Witkoff and the administration’s A.I. and crypto czar, David Sacks are lobbying for government authorization for the sale of U.S.-made high tech microchips to countries where they are negotiating business deals. They already negotiated a deal to sell the chips to the United Arab Emirates despite national security concerns because of its Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with China and its suspected role in channeling money to Hamas. The UAE, a major partner in Trump’s real estate business, also made a deal with World Liberty Financial to purchase $2 billion of the firm’s stablecoins which would earn millions in profits for the Trump and Witkoff families.
Last April, while attending a Saudi-backed golf tournament at one of his Florida clubs, Trump posted on Truth Social, “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE.”
