Hi John,

Virginia Canter here. I’m CREW’s chief ethics counsel—and I’m here to explain why CREW has been working around the clock to raise the alarm about Donald Trump’s media company going public.

A little over a week ago, Trump’s Truth Social merged with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a blank-check company also known as a SPAC, to take the company public and become Trump Media & Technology Group.

This deal gave the company a massive cash infusion—and it made Trump one of the 500 richest people in the world, according to Bloomberg. The timing was extraordinarily lucky for Trump, as he desperately needs cash to pay huge penalties for fraud and defamation in civil lawsuits.

To be honest, after Trump’s first term, I never thought his ethics situation could get worse.

He had already profited massively from the presidency through his real estate holdings and event venues, and used every conceivable platform to raise the profile of his businesses. All of that was unprecedented at the time—and it was already an ethics disaster.

But now that Trump is a presidential candidate with a publicly traded company, the situation is even worse.

Now, not only do everyday Americans have a chance to invest in Trump directly, but so do institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, or anyone looking for a political favor.

For example, as I told Time, billionaire megadonor and TikTok investor Jeffrey Yass’s fund’s investment in Trump’s company “may have provided him some level of access or influence that he might not otherwise have gotten.” Although the fund is publicly playing down its investment in Trump’s company, after a recent meeting with Trump in Florida, Yass also just happened to get something he wanted: a reversal by Trump on a TikTok ban.

But the true nightmare scenario would be a foreign investor getting involved. I spoke with CNBC earlier this week about that possibility: “Obviously, I would be most concerned about foreign interests that make significant investments in his company with an expectation that they will be given some sort of favored treatment when the need arises — even if it would threaten U.S. national security interests and historical alliances.”

That should be a far-fetched scenario, but knowing Trump, it’s not.

As CREW President Noah Bookbinder told the Washington Post, “Trump for years has been very open about the fact that he is receptive to being influenced by anyone who will support his businesses … and this seems like an opportunity that is tailor-made for that.”

Since the first day of public trading on March 26, Trump Media & Technology Group’s stock price has fluctuated wildly—which is not surprising given that the value of the company is not based on Truth Social’s technology or user base but on Trump himself and his political fortunes.

That was made explicit in the group’s SEC filings on Monday, in which the company admitted that it has no tangible property, lost tens of millions of dollars last year and was vulnerable to ongoing legal charges for Trump.

This is just the beginning of the story for Trump’s company. We’ll stay on top of all the developments and continue to raise the alarm in any and every way we can.

Thanks for reading,

Virginia Canter
Chief Ethics Counsel
CREW