Trump leveraging his office to reap profits for family businesses

By BRIAN SLODYSKO and WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — If one theme has emerged in President Donald Trump’s second term, it’s this: He’s leveraged the power of his office for personal gain unlike anyone before in history.

From crypto coins to bibles, overseas development deals to an upcoming line of cellphones, Trump family businesses have raked in hundreds of millions of dollars since his election, an unprecedented flood of often shadowy money from billionaires, foreign governments and cryptocurrency tycoons with interests before the federal government.

“He is president and is supposed to be working in the public’s interest,” said James Thurber, an emeritus professor at American University, who has researched lobbying, campaign finance and political corruption for decades. “Instead, he is helping his own personal interest to grow his wealth. It’s totally not normal.”

The sums amassed by the Trump Organization, the collection of companies controlled by the president’s children, are far greater than those collected by the family during the president’s first term, when patronage of his hotels, resorts and golf courses was de rigueur to curry favor with the famously transactional commander-in-chief.

The second time around, the Trump family’s ambitions are far grander, stretching from cyberspace to far-flung regions across the globe. One of Trump’s cryptocurrencies is conservatively estimated to have pulled in at least $320 million since January, while another received a $2 billion investment from a foreign government wealth fund. A third has sold at least $550 million in tokens.

His sons have jetted across the Middle East to line up new development deals, while his daughter and son-in-law are working with the Albanian government to build a Mediterranean island resort. Even first lady Melania Trump has inked a $40 million documentary deal with Amazon, whose founder, Jeff Bezos, was a frequent target of Trump during his first presidency and whose companies contract extensively with the federal government.

Drain the swamp?

The dealmaking is a rejection of Trump’s first-term pledge to “drain the swamp” in Washington and dwarfs the influence peddling efforts of former President Joe Biden’s family, whom Trump and his allies attacked as the “Biden Crime Family.”

While Democrats have condemned Trump for his overlapping roles as a beneficiary and president, he is not likely to face any immediate repercussions for such extensive conflicts-of-interest. Congress is controlled by fellow Republicans, and his administration is stocked with loyalists who have dismantled many guardrails of oversight. Last summer, the Supreme Court, with a conservative majority cemented by Trump, ruled that presidents have broad immunity from prosecution.

Even in the rare cases where Trump’s allies have urged caution, the president has ignored them. That’s what happened when he accepted a $400 million “beautiful, big, magnificent, free airplane” from the Qatari government. Trump said the Boeing 747 “would go directly” to his presidential library upon leaving office.

“It’s the Mount Everest of corruption” said Sen. Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat.

Since Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, presidents have gone to great lengths to avoid the appearance of such conflicts.

Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan kept assets in a “blind trust,” while George H.W. Bush used a “diversified trust,” which blocked him from knowing what was in his portfolio. His son, George W. Bush, used a similar arrangement.

Barack Obama was an exception, but his investments were mostly a bland mix of index funds and U.S. treasuries. During his first term, Trump even gave a nod toward ethics. He issued a moratorium on foreign deals. But instead of placing his assets in a blind trust like many of his predecessors, he handed the reins of the Trump Organization to his children, which kept his financial holdings close.

This time, he has made no such gesture. His sons, Eric and Donald Jr., are again running the business while Trump is in office. And though the White House says he is not involved in its day-to-day decisions, the trust he has established continues to profit. He promotes his resorts, merchandise and the family’s crypto ventures while residing in the White House, often from his account on Truth Social, the social media company he and his allies launched.

He’s also touted a line of Trump shoes, a Bible, which is made in China, and Trump guitars, one of which is a $1,500 Gibson Les Paul knockoff, featuring “Make America Great Again” fret inlays. Conservative groups and Republican committees have spent at least $25 million at Trump properties since 2015, with most of it coming from Trump’s own political organization, campaign finance disclosures show.

Trump embraces crypto

Yet, those ventures pale in comparison to his exploits in cryptocurrency, which offers perhaps the clearest example of the conflicts of interest that have come to dominate Trump’s second term.

Trump was once a crypto skeptic who declared that cryptocurrencies were “not money,” were based on “thin air” and seemed “like a scam.” By the time he was running again for president, however, he’d become a proponent of the industry.

“The difference now is he has realized that it can be his scam,” said Hilary Allen, a law professor at American University who specializes in banking and cryptocurrencies.

Trump has pledged to turn the U.S. into the “crypto capital of the world” and promised to roll back oversight of the industry.

Deregulation, of course, will help his own businesses. At the height of the campaign, Trump announced the launch of his own crypto coin and World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm that would be run by his sons and several business associates. Among those partners was Steve Witkoff, now one of Trump’s top diplomatic envoys.

The Trump Organization and World Liberty Financial declined to comment.

But it was also rooted in his 2024 campaign. At a crypto event at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in May 2024, he received assurances that industry figures would spend lavishly to get him reelected, The Associated Press previously reported.

Asked recently at the White House if he’d consider having his family business step back from its crypto investments to avoid questions about conflicts of interest, Trump said: “We’ve created a very powerful industry. That’s much more important than anything that we invest in.”

“I don’t care about investing. You know, I have kids and they invest in it, because they do believe in it,” Trump added of crypto. “But I’m president, and what I did do there was build an industry that’s very important. And, if we didn’t have it, China would.”

White House: Trump’s crypto push is not driven by self-interest

Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, reiterated that Trump’s crypto boosterism isn’t driven by self-interest.

He “is taking decisive action to establish regulatory clarity for digital financial technology and to secure America’s position as the world’s leader in the digital asset economy,” Fields said.

“The Trump administration,” Fields added, “is fulfilling the president’s promise to make the United States the crypto capital of the planet by driving innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans.”

Trump is soon expected to sign cryptocurrency legislation approved by Congress on Thursday. Among the provisions is a ban on members of Congress issuing their own brand of a particular type of cryptocurrency. The prohibition does not extend to the president.

Fields said it was unfair to equate critics’ charges of conflicts of interest against Trump with the president’s own suggestions that Biden’s family benefited financially while he was in office.

He said Trump’s policies haven’t benefited the president personally and have nothing to do with his family’s financial concerns — and said Trump entered the White House an already successful businessman who didn’t need a political career to become rich.

Even so, Trump’s family is poised to benefit financially from the crypto industry’s growing clout. It holds a majority ownership stake that entitles them to 75% of earnings from their first coin, released last September, according to World Liberty Financial’s website.

The coin, $WLFI, was not an immediate success. Then, after the president’s election, sales took off.

Days before his inauguration, Trump announced a new meme coin, $Trump, during the “Crypto Ball,” a Washington gala intended to showcase a regulatory sea change he vowed to usher in.

“Time to celebrate everything we stand for: WINNING!” Trump posted to his X account. “Join my very special Trump Community. GET YOUR $TRUMP NOW.”

Trump’s meme coin generated at least $320 million in fees

Often created as a joke with no real utility, meme coins are prone to wild price swings that often enrich a small group of insiders at the expense of less sophisticated investors. $Trump soared to over $70, but its price soon collapsed, losing money for many. It has hovered around $10 since March. Trump did well, though. By the end of April, the coin had earned over $320 million in fees, according to an analysis by the crypto tracking firm Chainalysis.

A third cryptocurrency, a “stablecoin” called USD1, launched in April.