This story originally appeared in Salon December 3, 2024
https://www.salon.com/2024/12/06/donald-is-not-even-bothering-to-hide-the-corruption-this-time/?utm_source=pocket_shared

COMMENTARY

Donald Trump is not even bothering to hide the corruption this time

Trump's sons are scurrying across the globe to secure new deals with foreign governments for the Trump Organization

By Heather Digby Parton

Columnist

Published December 6, 2024 9:53AM (EST)


First Lady Melania Trump, US President Donald Trump, Tiffany Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner stand after the president delivered his acceptance speech for the Republican Party nomination for reelection during the final day of the Republican National Convention at the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC on August 27, 2020. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

Last February, as Donald Trump was running for the Republican presidential nomination, he appeared at SneakerCon in Philadelphia to debut his latest branded product, gold sneakers emblazoned with the number 45. They retailed for $399 and reportedly sold out immediately, or at least orders for them did. They ended up going for thousands of dollars on eBay.

Any president other than Trump would be embarrassed to flaunt his corruption this blatantly.


Nobody knew exactly where these sneakers were made or who was making them but Newsweek reported that CIC Ventures LLC trademarked the designs out of Palm Beach and its managers were two Trump associates. The website states that the company selling the shoes is located in a small town in Wyoming and declares that the shoes "are not designed, manufactured, distributed or sold by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals." It uses the name, image and likeness under a license agreement. That same company is now selling a new product called "Fight, Fight, Fight" fragrance that sells for $199, also under a license agreement. There's also a $100,000 gold watch and guitars that go for as much as $11,500 for an American Eagle edition autographed by Trump himself all of which come out of the same company in Wyoming.

These licensing deals are the same sort of consumer branding Trump did before he was president when he put his name on everything from steaks to water to ties and more. It was his most lucrative business in the years he was starring on "The Apprentice" and it appears he has no intention of stopping now that he's going to be president again. I'd imagine he'll be signing those guitars right in the Oval Office. Perhaps he feels that because he is just licensing the rights (for which he gets paid handsomely) it's not really a side gig. Certainly, no one would think to buy one of those expensive watches or guitars just to curry favor with the most powerful man in the world, right?

Related --- "Outrageously powerful and incredibly secret": Yes, Trump can wield CIA, FBI for his own ends

Trump famously refused to divest his businesses in his first term and nobody did anything about it. He made millions as president, whether it was through people currying favor by spending vast sums at Trump hotels and resorts or charging the government top dollar for stays at his own commercial properties. His sons were still running around the world representing the Trump organization despite their pledge to refrain from all foreign business dealings.

According to the New York Times, they aren't even bothering to pretend this time:

In the wake of Donald J. Trump’s election victory, his family business is poised to capitalize on his presidency with a variety of new ventures, according to a New York Times review of financial records and interviews with people knowledgeable about his finances. And unlike in his first term, the people said, the Trump Organization aims to issue a more limited ethics plan that is unlikely to significantly curb its growth.

They say they won't do any deals directly with foreign governments which is awfully big of them. And anyway, why should they? They can just do what Jared Kushner did with Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and wink and nod at foreign governments until Trump's out of office to get their payoff. According to the Times, Trump's company is now "free to profit from an array of business in countries essential to American foreign policy interests:"

In the months leading up to Election Day, Eric Trump struck real estate deals in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and he has shown interest in new hotel projects in Israel and other countries across the Middle East, Latin America and Asia.

All of these projects will have the name of the President of the United States plastered all over them.

As the Times lays out, they aren't confining their foreign businesses to real estate and hospitality this time. The family helped create a cryptocurrency platform called World Liberty Financial. It's already made millions for Trump through just one transaction from a Chinese entrepreneur that could eventually net Trump as much as $22 million. This investor, Justin Sun, made it clear that he was doing it to suck up to Trump with a post on X saying he's committed to "making America great again."


The fact that he's currently under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and Trump will be appointing new commissioners surely has nothing to do with it. As Judd Legum at Popular Information reported, Sun is suspected of "fraudulently manipulating the secondary market" for a crypto token through "the simultaneous or near-simultaneous purchase and sale of a security to make it appear actively traded without an actual change in beneficial ownership."

Sun is now on the board of World Liberty Financial and is essentially Trump's business partner.

And then there is Trump's publicly traded social media company, DJT, which is also open to foreign investors. Trump owns about $4 billion of its stock, making it his most valuable asset. As CBS News reported, the stock has been extremely volatile moving wildly on news about Trump, making it more of a "meme" stock, defined as "companies that trade on social media buzz rather than financial fundamentals such as revenue and profit growth." Since the company has made virtually no money that sounds like a pretty good definition. CBS also noted that Trump was very upset about all that, saying the company had been the target of "probably illegal rumors and/or statements" demanding an investigation by the SEC — which will soon be answering to him. That's not an appearance of a conflict of interest, it's a straight-up conflict and any president other than Trump would be embarrassed to flaunt his corruption this blatantly.

Trump says they plan to offer a "white paper" outlining their new ethical guidelines which appear to be nothing more than a vague promise not to work with foreign governments. According to the Times, they figure that will "help the company contend with lawsuits based on the so-called foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts or payments from other governments."

The fact that they are already in bed with certain governments in one way or another will have to be litigated which takes a lot of time, particularly since Trump excels at deploying delaying tactics. The emoluments lawsuits that were filed during his first term took so long they ended up being rendered moot since he had already left office by the time they got to the Supreme Court. No doubt that's exactly what they're counting on happening again.

I've never fully understood why so few people seem to care about Trump's flagrant corruption. The Democrats only half-heartedly investigated it and certainly didn't bother to make it a campaign issue. Apparently, not selling the presidency to the highest bidder is just another one of those vaunted norms that was easily discarded, soon to be forgotten. Well, unless the son of a Democratic president traded on his father's name in years past. Then all bets are off.

Heather Digby Parton, also known as "Digby," is a contributing writer to Salon. She was the winner of the 2014 Hillman Prize for Opinion and Analysis Journalism.

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