John, we just wrote a letter to Donald Trump demanding he divest from his businesses.

In the 40 years prior to Trump’s first term, presidents of both parties took steps to limit their conflicts of interest, including placing their assets in truly blind trusts.

Despite this historic precedent and widespread concerns that his business interests could compromise the presidency, Trump chose not to divest when he took office in 2016.

The result? The most corrupt presidency in American history.

I don’t say lightly that Donald Trump’s presidency was the most corrupt in American history. CREW actually has the numbers to back it up.

During his first term, CREW tracked more than 3,700 conflicts of interest accumulated by Trump as a direct result of his failure to divest.

Politicians, foreign governments, and special interest groups all sought to curry favor with the Trump administration by spending money at Trump properties – including 143 members of Congress.

We also found that Trump likely earned at least $13.6 million in payments from foreign governments. This not only led to the appearance of partiality and corruption, which in itself is detrimental to our democracy, but suspicion: Were any of these governments getting something in return for their payments to Trump?

We estimated that as many as 30 special interest groups received favorable policy outcomes from the Trump administration around the time they held an event at Trump properties. Could the same be said for foreign governments?

And it isn’t just foreign visitors that are bankrolling Trump’s businesses – it’s Trump himself.

According to government records, Trump visited his own properties nearly 550 times while president, and those visits resulted in roughly $1.75 million taxpayer dollars being paid to Trump businesses – largely as a result of the Secret Service having to pay Trump properties for their officers to stay on site.

John, these are staggering sums of money and unprecedented conflicts of interest.

Clearly, Donald Trump’s actions violate both the Foreign and Domestic Emoluments Clauses of the Constitution, which prohibit the president from receiving profit, gain or advantage from foreign or state governments without the consent of Congress.

Now that Donald Trump owns Truth Social’s parent company, Trump Media & Technology Group, the potential for conflicts of interest if Trump doesn’t divest is even greater. New foreign business deals in Oman, Saudi Arabia and the UAE also add to the ethics concerns—as does Trump’s new Mexican trademark that we reported on last week.

If Trump fails to divest, the constitutional conflicts that plagued his first term will only intensify. We’re demanding better for the American people.

Thank you,

Noah Bookbinder
President
CREW