Donald Trump is not even bothering to hide the corruption this time | Salon.com
By: Heather Digby Parton (Salon)
pffft, there's no emoluments clause in the maga project 2025 version of the constitution.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
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?
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.
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bwah ha ha ha ha, any comments referencing hunter biden are off topic ... /s
He is sending a very loud and clear message that he cares nothing for the American people since his voting base failed him by not getting a massive amount of votes in 2020 to alliw him win in a landslide.
He is furious that he had go asking for the 11thousand votes from Georgia and there wasn't enough corruption there to hand it to him.
Now his own MAGA voting base is the primary target for retribution.
He has scrapped any idea about elections which are fake if he loses, valid when he wins.
Now the loud and clear message is To hand America over to billionaires who will smack down his own voters along with the rest of the American people showing them who is the "boss".
Trump thinks only the high and mighty billionaire class should have a say, he was never about the working class or jobs. He just made perfectly clear that Elon and Vivek, along with his billionaire "posse" coming to town are going to squash Americans by closing down the government under the guise of "saving money" putting thousands upon thousands of people out of work.
What happens to their lives? A huge number of government employees are American Veterans. Add the plan to scrap Veterans Healthcare, destroy Social Security and Medicare, add the destruction of Medicaid, any social safety net and WHAT do you think will happen?
If the right wing nuts are griping about homeless Veterans and homeless camps across the country get ready to see homeless camps double overnight. What happens to the banks when thousands and thousands of mortgages can't be paid? Those lost homes will be bought up by billionaire corporations making housing even more out of reach.
What happens to the American economy when all the destruction takes place? The thousands of veterans and folks with years of service who don't deserve what's coming can't buy things.
What happens to Main Street small business when Musk and Ramaswamy embark on their plan to destroy government and those jobs? These billionaires want small business crushed into dust.
This will be just the start, seniors will suffer the most and children of the people losing their jobs are the collateral damage these cruel selfish men care nothing about.
We will become corporate slaves. The corporations will own everything and we will all have a life debt.
... france 1789.
It may come to that
It will come to that!
play stupid games, win stupid prizes maga ...
Our President, a con man grifting the MAGA nuts that follow him.
For centuries we have had statesman until 2016 when we first elected a conman.
he's got nothing to lose now and he knows it ...
all the emolument claims were rendered moot after trump's last term and just went away. now he knows if the same thing happens again he has the other 2 branches of government in his pocket and he'll never be inside of another court room for the rest of his life.
Smells like desperation and fear. You know...bean farts
have you seen the trump shot glass with the slug lodged in the glass advertised on youtube? ... or the electic trump train?
Haven't seen those but some company is selling coins with his face on them
... like this one?
lol
Is that the train he was engineering with Epstein...?
it's the one his wife came to NYC on before she married him ...
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Doesn’t matter. Those who support this guy are more than happy to embrace every fatal flaw that he is composed of.
make sure you keep a running list of the revenge and retribution crowd ... /s
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