WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has spent his first three weeks in office making corruption easier, for him and anyone else with any degree of power.
In a single 24-hour period on Monday, Trump fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics, whose job it is to watch for conflicts of interest. He pardoned a former Illinois governor convicted of trying to sell a U.S. Senate seat. He is stopping the enforcement of an anti-bribery law. His Justice Department ordered prosecutors to drop charges against Eric Adams, who has been indicted on bribery and fraud counts, even as they conceded the decision had little to do with the strength of the evidence against the New York City mayor, who has cozied up to Trump.
In the weeks since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump has ordered a likely illegal mass firing of inspectors general. Hepardoned a major drug dealer in a quid-pro-quo with libertarians for their support in the November election. He stripped people who have criticized him of their security clearances, making their livelihoods more difficult. His Justice Department eliminated units aimed at kleptocracy and preventing foreign interference in elections.
And, in an unprecedented move for a president, in the days before taking office, Trump set up a “cryptocurrency” scheme that will allowhim to take millions, even billions of dollars from domestic and foreign interests seeking his favor, with no way for Americans to ever track a dime of it.
“By all indications, Trump is planning to run a lawless administration and these unprecedented moves are an alarming first step to put those plans into action,” said Donald Sherman, director of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington watchdog group.
Trump’s White House officials did not try to explain Trump’s conduct and instead offered personal insults.
“I don’t respond to left-wing activists who pose as journalists,” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
Added communications director Steven Cheung: “You’re insane.”
Trump, however, has provided his own explanations that appear to signal he is fine with corruption, provided those doing it praise him enough.
Of his pardon for former Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he won the 2008 presidential election, Trump said: “I’ve watched him. He was set up by a lot of bad people, some of the same people that I had to deal with.” Trump was presumably referring to the federal prosecutions for his Jan. 6, 2021, attempt to overturn the election he had lost and for his refusal to turn over secret documents he was keeping at Mar-a-Lago, his South Florida country club. (Following his election win, the Department of Justice dropped both cases, citing longstanding policy not to prosecute a sitting president.)
On dropping charges against Adams, Trump said: “I think he was treated pretty unfairly.”
On ending enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which makes it illegal for Americans to use bribery when doing business in other countries, Trump said as he signed his order: “It’s going to mean a lot more business for America.”
Trump, who constantly accuses others of being corrupt, is meanwhile continuing to direct Republican organizations and other supportive groups to hold events at his properties, thereby putting the profits generated back into his own pocket. A retreat for Republican senators this past weekend, for example, scheduled a dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago on Friday night.
In the first two years of Trump’s first term, the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign and 117 candidates and groups poured $4.3 million into Trump’s various hotels and golf courses, a HuffPost analysis found.
Trump even tried to host the G7 meeting of the world’s largest democratically run economies at his aging and mildewy golf resort in Doral, Florida, before intense press scrutiny pressured him to back off.
Until Trump came along, Warren Harding’s administration was generally considered the most corrupt, largely because of the Teapot Dome scandal. Harding’s interior secretary was convicted and imprisoned for bribery related to his awarding of oil leases. Harding himself was not implicated before his death of a heart attack two years into his presidency.
Presidents in modern times have been held to significantly higher standards in their personal finances, particularly following Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974 following the abuse of power investigations into his attempts to cover up an attempt to steal campaign secrets from Democrats prior to the 1972 election.
Elected presidents began putting their assets in blind trusts to make sure they personally could not help their investments with their official duties, even if they wanted to. The major party nominees began releasing their personal tax returns to show precisely how they had made their money.
Those norms came to a crashing halt with Trump, who has, since his 2016 run, refused to release his tax returns. And upon his victory, Trump refused to separate himself from his hotel and golf course businesses.
Indeed, Trump actually encouraged foreign and domestic interests to frequent a hotel he owned just five blocks from the White House. Lobbyists and the Trump agency officials they were seeking to influence would gather there nightly, spending cash at the bar and restaurant. Foreign delegations would stay in the pricey rooms, sometimes occupying large blocks for a week or more.
A report by House Democrats based on records released by Trump’s accountants after a lawsuit showed that Trump collected at least $7.8 million from foreign sources, including $5.6 million from China, from the hotel and his other properties during his first term.
Trump sold the hotel after he left office — customer demand dropped precipitously when he was no longer president — although he is reportedly considering buying it back.
In the meantime, Trump has cooked up a far more lucrative money-maker: a virtual “coin” that does not involve a building or wait staff or maids or any of the costs associated with a hotel. Instead, people the world over, including foreign nations seeking his favor, have the ability to buy millions of dollars, tens of millions, or more of his “$TRUMP” digital coins. Since Trump and his partners own most of the unsold coins, an increase in market value inures to Trump’s benefit, while the act of buying them generates immediate cash.
A recent New York Times analysis found that the Trump family and its partners have already made nearly $100 million from trading fees, regardless of what happens to the value of the digital coin.
And while buyers of his coins can make it known to Trump and his representatives that they have made purchases, the American public has no way to determine the identity of any buyer.
“Can this be used for bribes? Yes, absolutely,” said one crypto expert who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retribution from Trump and his allies.
“It’s even worse than it was during the first Trump administration. The Saudis don’t have to pretend to rent a floor of hotel rooms to line Trump’s pockets. The Saudis and whoever else can buy his crypto tokens,” said Kathleen Clark, a government ethics expert at the Washington University School of Law.
Despite the concerns of critics and good government groups, Trump has repeatedly boosted the coin on social media — just as he defended his other actions that, in earlier times, would have seemed scandalous.
Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said Trump’s actions already put him in a class by himself.
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“Trump’s level of corruption far exceeds that of President Harding, and already makes President Nixon look like a piker. No wonder Nixon strongly encouraged Trump to seek the White House,” he said, adding that Trump’s pardon for hundreds of his followers who assaulted police in his name on Jan. 6 must also be counted in his catalog of corruption.
“They helped him try to steal a presidential election, and now the most vicious among them could be available for special assignments, as needed,” Sabato said.
Arthur Delaney contributed to this report.