How Trump 2.0 Became the Most Corrupt Presidency in Our History
It all starts with Donald Trump, of course, and his rapacious lust for money.
This has made the Trump presidency the most corrupt administration in American history.
During the past year, President Trump made a reported $4 billion for himself and his family, with cryptocurrency a major source of the profits.
No president other than Trump has used the presidency to massively enrich himself.
No president other than Trump has ignored the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause by accepting substantial financial benefits from foreign countries that were seeking favorable U.S foreign policy decisions in return.
No president other than Trump has made enormous sums from a single industry, in this case cryptocurrency, while delivering uniformly favorable policies to that same industry.
No president other than Trump has established so many avenues for the super-rich and major corporations to influence policy by pouring both private and political money into his entities.
In 2019, Trump said, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president.”
That was his operating approach in the first year of his second term. His corrupt practices and conflicts of interest have enabled him and his family to grab billions of dollars in just one year.
Trump has created numerous avenues to vacuum up private money: his Inauguration, his monstrous ballroom, the Kennedy Center, his proposed 250-foot Arch, the Trump Accounts, Freedom 250, and the Trump Presidential Library Fund.
Trump also has vacuumed up political money: his affiliated Super PAC, MAGA Inc., started 2026 with more than $300 million in cash on hand, with most of it raised in 2025. (Super PACs were established by the Supreme Court, not Congress, and they returned unlimited, huge contributions to American politics.)
These unlimited, massive private and political contributions to Trump entities generally come from wealthy individuals and large corporations, many of whom have business matters pending before the federal government.
As a result, these enormous contributions create widespread opportunities for Trump to sell, and for donors to buy, access, influence, and outcomes.
For example, the Wall Street Journal recently reported that just days before Trump was sworn in to his second term, the U.A.E secretly bought 49 percent of Liberty Financial for $500 million. The Trump family has major financial holdings in Liberty Financial.
Lo and behold, months later, the Trump administration reportedly committed to give the U.A.E access to 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips per year. The chips had not been made available to the U.A.E by the past administration, largely based on fears the chips would end up in China’s hands.
Another avenue for raising money has been Trump’s use of the presidential pardon.
Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the founder, former CEO, and owner of 90 percent of Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
Lo and behold, as of this month, Binance reportedly owns 87 percent of Trump’s Stablecoin.
Trump pardoned Julio Herrera Velutini, who was convicted of bribing the former governor of Puerto Rico.
Lo and behold, Velutini’s daughter had contributed a combined total of $3.5 million to Trump’s super PAC in 2024 and 2025.
Supreme Court Gives Trump a License to Do Whatever He Wants
Trump is a unicorn in his use of the presidency to rip off massive personal wealth. Setting the stage for this was the Supreme Court who gave Trump a license to steal.
In Trump v. United States (2024) – perhaps the Court’s worst decision since Dred Scott in 1857 – the Supreme Court opened the door for Trump to act in his second term, as he had claimed, with “the right to do whatever I want.” In its 6-3 decision, the Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice John Roberts, held that presidents have a combination of absolute and presumed immunity for so-called “official acts.” This gave Trump full-scale legal unaccountability.
In addition, the Roberts opinion gave Trump explicit power to take complete control of the Justice Department. He has proceeded to wildly misuse that power for his unprecedented revenge, retaliation and retribution campaign against his political opponents and perceived enemies.
The presidency must be fixed.
No president or his family can be allowed to profit by using this public office for personal financial gain. The law enforcement separation between the Justice Department and the president that existed for fifty years must be restored.
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Fred’s Weekly Note appears on Thursdays in Wertheimer’s Political Report, a Democracy 21 newsletter. Read this week’s newsletter, and other recent editions, here. And subscribe for free here and receive your copy each week via email.
