Trump’s Corruption Is Corrosive to Our National Security and Democracy
Since entering the presidency for a second time, Trump, who has never been fastidious about separating public and private business, has been involved in a remarkable number of serious conflicts of interest. He announced his intention to accept a $400 million Boeing 747 from the Qatari government, which would be used in lieu of Air Force One for the remainder of his Presidency, after which it would be transferred to his Presidential library. He has continued selling access to himself through his meme coin. And, his trip to Saudi Arabia was preceded by his family’s announcement, late last year, of a new 47-story luxury residential tower overlooking the Red Sea in Jeddah. Trump confirmed he is planning a luxury high-rise in the heart of Dubai. This will be the first Trump-branded tower in the region and the fifth partnership with Dar Global. Additionally, Trump confirmed he is planning a Trump International Golf Club, a $5.5 billion luxury golf resort north of Doha, featuring an 18-hole golf course, clubhouse, and Trump-branded villas, in Qatar. All of this private business was done traveling to the Middle East paid by American tax payer’s
Trump’s push to sharply ease oversight of the cryptocurrency industry, while he and his sons have fast expanded crypto ventures that have reaped billions of dollars from investors including foreign ones, is raising alarm about ethical and legal issues.
Watchdog groups, congressional Democrats and some Republicans have levelled a firestorm of criticism at Trump for hawking his own meme coin, $Trump, a novelty crypto token with no inherent value, by personally hosting the May dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of $Trump and a private “reception” for the 25 biggest buyers. Although no list of the attendees has been released, it is believed the majority of those at the dinner were foreign millionaires and billionaires.
To attend the two events, the $Trump buyers spent an average of $148 million, which benefitted Trump and partners, according to the crypto firm Inca Digital.
Further, the Trump family crypto venture World Liberty Financial that launched last fall, which his two oldest sons have promoted hard, was tapped to play a key part in a $2 billion investment deal by an Abu Dhabi financial fund in the crypto exchange Binance, which in 2023 pleaded guilty to US money laundering and other violations.
The new World Liberty Financial deal was announced at an Abu Dhabi crypto conference that drew Eric Trump two weeks before Trump’s mid-May visit to the United Arab Emirates capital, sparking other concerns of improper foreign influence and ethics issues.
To better enable Trump to engage in corruption, together with several loyalists, the administration has moved to end monitoring and enforcement efforts that are vital to combating corruption and protecting our elections and government from foreign influence.
On her first day in office, Attorney General Pam Bondi disbanded the Foreign Influence Task Force, an FBI team formed during Trump’s first term in office to combat foreign interference in elections from countries like Russia and China. Attorney General Bondi also disbanded DOJ groups tasked with seizing the assets of Russian oligarchs.
In addition, by dramatically scaling back enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, foreign lobbyist reporting requirements, and rules requiring the disclosure of shell companies’ beneficial owners, the Trump administration has left us far more susceptible to hostile foreign influence. That is why both the dinner Trump hosted for the buyers of his $Trump and his private family dealings in the Middle East, is so disturbing.
Within weeks of taking office, President Trump’s Department of Justice moved to drop ongoing investigations and prosecutions involving serious violations of campaign finance and ethics laws.
For example, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was indicted in September, 2024 by a federal grand jury for, among other things, unlawfully soliciting or accepting political contributions from foreign nationals. However, the Department of Justice moved to dismiss the case.
The decision to drop the charges against Adams — apparently in exchange for his cooperation with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in New York City — signaled that the Trump administration doesn’t believe these laws are important enough to be enforced.
Additionally, this sends a message that lawbreaking will be overlooked for political loyalists.
The scale of these conflicts may be unique for an American politician, but Trump, who has consistently condemned the Washington “swamp,” is one of many right-wing “populist” leaders and former leaders —Viktor Orban, of Hungary; Recep Tayyip Erdogan, of Turkey; Narendra Modi, of India; Jair Bolsonaro, the former President of Brazil—who have won election by running against a supposedly corrupt system, and then become embroiled in corruption scandals that often vastly eclipse those of their predecessors.
There is certainly a connection between autocracy and corruption. There’s also a connection between corruption and all kinds of other things, so autocracy is not the only cause. But if a leader comes to power and starts eliminating all checks on the executive, one set of those checks will be the kinds of things that can detect and control corruption. It’s very often the case that autocrats who want to stay in power forever think, Well, gee, as long as I’m here, why don’t I just grab everything in sight? It’s a pretty common pattern that autocrats, sooner or later, engage in self-enrichment as part of their power grab.
Corruption is corrosive to our democracy. When leaders abuse their power to benefit themselves and their political allies instead of the people they are elected to serve, people lose faith in the democratic process.
This is why strong, well-enforced legal guardrails are needed to prevent corruption.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration has moved swiftly to scale back, reverse or fully dismantle these guardrails, undermining laws, agencies, and programs that protect Americans against corruption, abuses of power and foreign influence in our elections and government.
The Bottom Line:
Since the Trump administration took office, the U.S. went from one of the world’s leading champions of fighting corruption to what risks being the opposite, with far-reaching costs to the American people at home and globally.
It is deeply concerning how quickly the Trump administration is undermining critical U.S. anti-corruption frameworks and leadership globally. These actions run counter to bipartisan efforts undertaken by previous administrations and the U.S. Congress to fight illicit finance and malign foreign influence to protect American interests from corrupt actors. These actions also stand in contrast to the recognition of the harms associated with illicit finance and other corruption issues, as noted in resources such as the Trump administration’s U.S. Intelligence Community’s 2025 Annual Threat Assessment.