For years, Republican lawmakers and right-wing media outlets frothed at the mouth over Hunter Biden’s laptop and fabricated tales of Burisma “corruption” — stories so thoroughly debunked that the FBI informant who invented them, Alexander Smirnov, is now serving six years in prison for his lies. The GOP knew the Burisma bribes were fake Russian disinformation from the start, yet they weaponized these fabrications to launch impeachment proceedings and relentlessly smear the Biden family. Meanwhile, they’ve maintained a deafening silence about the brazen, documented, and ongoing corruption stench emanating from Donald Trump’s second presidency.

The hypocrisy is breathtaking in its audacity. While Republicans manufactured outrage over phantom millions supposedly flowing to the Bidens — money that never existed, deals that never happened, corruption that was entirely fictional — they’ve turned a blind eye to the very real, very documented flood of cash pouring into Trump’s coffers from foreign governments, cryptocurrency schemes, and pay-to-play access deals that would make a banana republic dictator blush. Maryland Representative and House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin called it a “gangster state” in a recent interview with MSNBC‘s Chris Hayes.

What follows is not speculation, not innuendo, not the fever dreams of political opponents. This is a meticulously documented catalog of corruption so vast and shameless that it dwarfs anything previously seen in American presidential history. From $346 million in inaugural slush funds to $5.5 billion foreign real estate deals, from cryptocurrency pump-and-dump schemes netting nearly a billion dollars to a $400 million plane gift from Qatar — the Trump administration has transformed the presidency into a personal ATM with all the subtlety of a smash-and-grab robbery.

The Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s served as the quintessential symbol of government corruption for decades — over a mere $7 million worth of bribes to Interior Secretary Albert Fall. It was eclipsed and replaced by Watergate, shortly preceded by the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew over the discovery of his $300,000 operation that funneled cash stuffed into plain envelopes by bag men into the White House. Trump’s corruption represents a quantum leap beyond even these watershed moments in terms of sheer orders of magnitude, as well as the brazen manner in which the heists are being conducted in broad daylight.

The same party that spent years screaming about imaginary Ukrainian energy company bribes and fantasy Chinese business deals has remained conspicuously silent as their standard-bearer openly auctions off American foreign policy, drops federal investigations for donors, and literally sells dinner invitations for millions of dollars. The cognitive dissonance would be comical if it weren’t so dangerous to our democracy.

What is an example of political corruption in the United States? You cannot find a bigger collection of brazen examples. This is the story they don’t want you to focus on — the real corruption, the documented grift, the unprecedented monetization of the American presidency happening right before our eyes. I’ll be aiming to keep this list updated with the inevitable additions to come.

Financial Gains from Inaugural Funds and Campaign Donations

• Donald Trump’s two inaugural committees raised an astounding $346 million, which is more than all other inaugural committees combined since Richard Nixon’s in 1973. There is no oversight on how Trump uses the money that was not spent on festivities, although allies claim it will go to projects like his presidential library (…for the guy who doesn’t read.).
• Companies and executives who donated heavily to Trump’s inaugural fund have seen direct benefits in return. For example, the Trump administration withdrew a Biden-era rule requiring poultry companies to keep salmonella bacteria levels below a certain level. Pilgrim’s Pride, which gave $5 million to Trump’s inaugural committee (making it the largest donor to that effort), had two executives on the board of the National Chicken Council, which celebrated the reversal.
• The Trump administration has dropped federal investigations and lawsuits against 89 corporations, many of whose leaders donated heavily to Trump’s inaugural fund.
• Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, and AI search startup Perplexity each planned or did donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, while Trump has refused to sign paperwork requiring him to disclose the donors. The fund has been described as a “slush fund” due to a lack of required accounting for how the money is spent.

Leveraging Cryptocurrencies for Personal Profit

• On April 27, 2025, Trump announced that the top 220 holders of his $TRUMP cryptocurrency token would be invited to a private dinner with him and offered a “VIP White House Tour” the next day. This news caused the meme coin to jump over 50%, netting Trump and his allies nearly $900,000 in trading fees.
• The Trump family controls about 60% of World Liberty Financial (WLF), a decentralized financial platform that produces the USD1 stablecoin. USD1 began trading on KuCoin, an exchange headquartered in the Seychelles and banned in the United States after admitting to money laundering and agreeing to pay a $300 million fine.
• A struggling technology company with ties to China secured funding to buy $300 million of Trump’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency, reportedly hoping to curry favor with the president.
• A Bloomberg analysis of the top 25 wallets holding $TRUMP showed that 19 are owned by individuals from outside the United States, and many winners are companies seeking access to the president; many dumped their coins as soon as they made the cut for the dinner. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington reported that 50 of the dinner invitees hold crypto assets with alt-right, racist, or antisemitic names or symbols.
• China-born billionaire Justin Sun, who was under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when Trump took office, bought $30 million (and later another $45 million) in crypto tokens from Trump’s new crypto venture (World Liberty Financial), which funneled about $18 million directly to Trump. Sun later successfully lobbied for a pause in the SEC case to negotiate a settlement.
• The SEC also appears to have dropped its case against the crypto trading platform Coinbase after the platform donated $75 million to a political action committee associated with Trump and $1 million to Trump’s inauguration.
• An investment firm backed by the government of the United Arab Emirates agreed to use World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin for a $2 billion deal with Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, whose founder has asked Trump for a presidential pardon. This deal alone could generate tens of millions of dollars annually in revenue for the Trump family and its partners at World Liberty.
• As of May 6, 2025, 58 crypto wallets had made over $10 million each on Trump’s meme coin, totaling $1.1 billion in profits, while 764,000 smaller holders lost money. The meme’s creators had pocketed over $324 million in trading fees.

Trump Organization Deals with Foreign Governments/Entities

• The Trump Organization cut a deal on May 1, 2025, with Qatari Diar (established by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund) and Saudi Arabian company Dar Global to build a $5.5 billion Trump International Golf Club in Qatar. This deal violates an “ethics agreement” Trump released on January 10, 2025, which prohibited the Trump Organization from striking new deals with foreign governments.
• On May 12, 2025, Trump was planning to accept a gift of a $400 million luxury Boeing 747-8 plane from the Qatari royal family to be used as Air Force One during his presidency and taken by him when he leaves office. This is despite the constitutional prohibition against accepting gifts from foreign governments without congressional consent, and U.S. law prohibiting presidents from accepting gifts worth more than $480. Trump loyalist Attorney General Pam Bondi (who lobbied for Qatar in 2019, earning $115,000 a month) and Trump’s top White House lawyer signed off on the acceptance of the jet. Air Force officials estimate it will take years and up to $1 billion in taxpayer money to secure the plane for presidential use.
• On May 28, 2025, Eric Trump joined Vietnam’s prime minister for a groundbreaking ceremony for a $1.5 billion luxury real estate development with three 18-hole golf courses outside Hanoi. This deal, along with others in Serbia, Indonesia, and the Middle East, was made after Trump imposed 46% tariffs on Vietnam, leading Vietnamese officials to hastily ink a deal with the Trumps to avoid the tariffs.
• Trump has reportedly offered businessmen a one-on-one meeting at Mar-a-Lago for $5 million, or a group dinner for $1 million.

Trump Family Appointments and Connections

• Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump invested in the artificial intelligence company Dominari Holdings, Inc., and joined its advisory board, receiving 750,000 shares each, just weeks after Donald Trump announced a push to loosen regulations and expand infrastructure for AI. They had no official duties. Dominari stock leaped over 1,000% after they joined, and they now each control 1.2 million shares worth $5.8 million.
• Kimberly Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s former fiancée, was tapped to become the U.S. ambassador to Greece despite lacking any diplomatic experience.
• Donald Trump is pushing Florida governor Ron DeSantis to name his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to a Senate seat.
• Tiffany Trump’s father-in-law, Massad Boulos, was tapped as Middle East advisor, despite reports that his reputation as a billionaire mogul is undeserved and he is a small-time truck salesman.
• Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former senior White House advisor, faced scrutiny regarding financial conflicts of interest. Qatar, which had previously refused to bail out Kushner’s badly leveraged 666 Fifth Avenue property, suddenly provided necessary cash after Kushner talked to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who had imposed a blockade on Qatar. Kushner then took credit for brokering the agreement that lifted the blockade, leading to concerns that he may have prioritized his personal financial interests over national interest.

Other Related Incidents

• The “Executive Branch” club, an invitation-only club backed by Donald Trump Jr. and megadonor Omeed Malik, opened in Washington, D.C., costing over half a million dollars to join. It is designed to allow top business executives to talk privately with Trump advisors and cabinet members.
• Donald Trump appointed billionaire Tom Barrack to be his administration’s ambassador to Turkey. Barrack chaired Trump’s 2016 inauguration fund and was accused (and acquitted) of secret lobbying for the United Arab Emirates in exchange for investments of tens of millions of dollars.
• The administration has been accused of slashing the division of the Internal Revenue Service that audits high-earning individuals and corporations.
• The Trump administration has been described as “running the U.S. government as an extended arm of the Trump Organisation”. The administration continues to insist it is cutting “waste, fraud, and abuse,” but is reportedly cutting programs on which Americans depend.
• The “TACO trade” (Trump always chickens out) refers to Trump’s habit of threatening exceptionally high tariffs and then backing down, which Wall Street analysts believe allows investors to profit by buying stocks cheaply after the initial threat and selling higher after the rebound.
• Trump granted clemency to 25 people, including former Republican Representative Michael Grimm and former Connecticut governor John Rowland, both convicted of tax fraud. He also commuted the federal life sentence of Chicago gang leader Larry Hoover.