John,

Back in April, CREW raised the alarm about Donald Trump’s media company going public. Today, we’re raising the alarm again.

It’s unprecedented that a presidential candidate controls a publicly traded company — and it opens up a whole host of new corruption concerns, because it could make it even easier for those seeking to curry favor to secretly funnel Trump cash.

For months after Trump’s DJT stock went public, he couldn’t sell his shares, because of a “lock up period.”

But starting on September 19th, that lock-up period will end, and Donald Trump could sell his stake in DJT, which is valued at roughly $2 billion.

John, that means Trump will soon have access to a massive amount of money, basically subsidized by anyone that wants to support him, free of the kinds of reporting requirements that come with campaign contributions.

Any substantial purchase of DJT stock by foreign or domestic governments while Trump holds a significant number of shares would raise emoluments concerns, as we recently laid out in our report about how Trump’s conflicts are poised to intensify.

Trump’s majority share in Truth Social is *one* massive emoluments issue, but so is the business he’s doing with the Saudi owned LIV Golf tournament, all the rent he’s poised to collect from foreign governments at Trump World Tower and the Trump Organization’s new real estate developments in Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

At CREW, we’re committed to exposing Trump’s financial conflicts of interest. Please, make a donation to support our work today →

Trump could make all of these concerns go away by committing to divest from his business interests in a potential second term, but given his failure to do so last time, we’re not holding our breath.

As we laid out in our report on Trump’s potential emoluments, there are also actions Congress and the executive branch, particularly inspectors general and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, could take to prevent the worst case scenario. Read our complete analysis here.

Thanks,

Robert Maguire
VP of Research
CREW